Welcome Home
by Bird of Poetry
Summary: A story about families shattered by war. Part 20 of the Dæmorphing series.
1. Chapter 1

**Eva**

One of the small everyday oddities of being a Controller is that you don't need an alarm clock. You sleep, sure, but Yeerks don't. When it's time to wake up, your Yeerk just prods that part of your brain, and suddenly you're awake. I used to be a coffee addict, but Yeerks don't need any chemical aids to get you fully alert in the morning.

Another one of those little everyday quirks is that you don't get to do your morning routine in privacy. Edriss used to weaponize my insecurities about my body and my dæmon to try to beat me into submission every morning. _You gain any more weight and you'll start waddling like Mercurio,_ she'd sneer at the mirror. It wasn't that she'd actually cared what I looked like – what does one body shape or another matter to a Yeerk? – it was that _I_ cared, and she used that against me.

With Aftran, it was different. It wasn't that my body and its upkeep didn't matter, more that she noticed and felt things about it that were totally different from anything that would have occurred to me. When I brushed my teeth, she thought about how hard and sharp they were compared to the rest of me, like Hork-Bajir blades in miniature. When Mercurio joined me in the shower, as he liked to do, she wondered at how half of me was made for the savanna and half of me made for the sea. To her, I was an intriguing monster, as bizarre and fascinating as an Andalite whipping its tail in the span of an eyeblink.

Mercurio wondered idly, as I put on one of my five identical black suits, how I would present this body of mine, occupied like a hotel by different residents, once the choice was back in my hands.

Ten minutes after my Aftran-alarm, I was clean, clothed, and seated at our computer terminal. Our holo-screen pinged with an automatic reminder. "Meeting with Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine and guests in Conference Room Three," it said in Galard.

Aftran sighed. For the first time this morning, she spoke. «The problem with not killing your subordinates for looking at you funny is that when you get put in charge of the operation, they start doing pesky things like taking initiative and coming to you with ideas.»

It had already happened once. The Sub-Visser in charge of security in the Grash Akdap Pool had called me to discuss her ideas about how to keep the Andalite bandits out, and I'd had no choice but to take her suggestions into account. The Yeerk invasion on Earth was running more smoothly by the day. Garoff had already called me to tell me how pleased he was with my leadership. I felt triumphant and helpless at the same time. Edriss had been many things, but she had always been a great leader, and I ran the show up to her highest standards. I had them all fooled, that was for sure. But everything I did to fool the Empire made the war that much harder for the Guardians of the Galaxy to fight. What kept me riding high were our secret victories. Aftran and I had set a Sub-Visser we knew to be incompetent to oversee the security on a new Yeerk Pool entrance. The next time the Animorphs had to go down there, we would have one way in for them we knew would be safe.

Conference Room Three was made to accommodate all the host bodies of the Empire. The Controllers who had come to meet me, though, we were all Hork-Bajir-Controllers, sitting in large chairs with room for their tails. Some of them were Blue Bands from my ship, while some had clearly docked here from other ships in the fleet. Sub-Visser 201 had a large box in her lap. «What does it all mean?» Aftran said.

«Something going on with the Hork-Bajir hosts,» I thought. «Or a new battle strategy for Hork-Bajir-Controllers? I have no idea what these subordinates are going to come to me about anymore.» Everyone stood to acknowledge me as I came in. I sat on a human-shaped chair near the door, Mercurio at eye level beside me, as if I were ready to leave at any moment if I grew impatient with the proceedings. "You're the one who called this meeting, Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine," I told her coolly. "State your business."

"Yes, Visser One," Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine said. Knowing me and Aftran well – or maybe knowing Visser One well, at this point it could be unnervingly difficult to tell the difference – she skipped any obsequious congratulations over our recent promotion. "My associates have noticed something important about our hosts. We have compared notes extensively, and tested our hypotheses. We believe we have discovered something of tactical significance."

I raised my eyebrows. "Well, what is it?"

"It would be best if we showed you," Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine said. She gestured to Sub-Visser 201, who brought her box to the table at the center of the conference room and took out a dozen clear containers. They were all full of Pool sludge, judging by the way they sloshed, but instead of its normal translucence, the sludge had all been dyed an opaque black. "One of these containers has a live Yeerk inside. If you would indulge me, Visser One, allow us all to leave the room while you place these containers in a line, in an order of your choosing. When we return, we will all individually write down on our datapads which one contains the Yeerk. You will find that we are all in agreement."

"What is this, some game Hork-Bajir play to entertain their children?" I sneered, buying time for Aftran and I to catch up with what Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine was getting at. "I wouldn't have found this amusing even as a grub in my first Gedd."

"It's no game, Visser One," Sub-Visser 201 said, with disgusting earnestness. "This is of great import to the war effort."

I gestured for the Hork-Bajir-Controllers to leave. When they were gone, and I started switching around the containers, trying desperately to understand, Aftran cried, « _By the Kandrona_! Eva, do you know what this _means_!»

«You mean…» A bunch of stray remarks came together in my mind as I switched the jars around like a street performer with coconut shells. «These Hork-Bajir-Controllers have figured out their _hrala_ -sight isn't just a visual defect. That they can use it to detect _hrala_ -producing beings.»

«Like "Andalite bandits" in morph!» Aftran said. If I hadn't been at the steering wheel of my body she would have had me trembling all over.

« _Fuck me sideways with a chainsaw,_ » Mercurio said, with feeling.

«This is our fault,» Aftran moaned. «You become a leader of an invasion who _doesn't_ chop underlings' heads off when they disagree with you, and look what happens!»

«I'll stall them for as long as I can,» I promised, «but it won't be for long. We need to get word to the Animorphs.»

The Hork-Bajir-Controllers came back in. They inspected the containers and wrote on their datapads. Sure enough, when they held them up, they all indicated the same container. I let Aftran open it and stick her hand in, as she would be less disgusted by the sensation of a Yeerk in her hand. She held it up and raised her eyebrows. "Explain."

Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine said, "Visser, we are all experienced Hork-Bajir-Controllers. I myself have had Hork-Bajir hosts for fifteen generations. We have consulted on certain observations we have made over this time. We believe the so-called 'visual defect' of the Hork-Bajir is no defect at all. They perceive thinking beings differently from non-thinking ones. It takes practice to be able to tell the difference, but all of us in this room have trained ourselves to do it. That is how we chose the right container; through close inspection we could see that it contained a thinking being." She flashed a toothy grin. "Which means we can use this ability to detect Andalites in morph."

My turn. I put the Yeerk back in the container and raised my eyebrows. "Very exciting, if you can prove it's practical." I swiveled in my chair a little to look at the lower-ranking Controllers and added, as if in a casual aside, "This is, after all, the Sub-Visser who thought we might increase efficiency by adding herbs from the Hork-Bajir homeworld to the dried bark feed." I swiveled back. "Train twenty more Hork-Bajir-Controllers in your method, and give me a new demonstration in seven rane. This time, put Yeerks in viable non-thinking hosts along with some uninfested hosts, and show me you can consistently tell them apart." I didn't know if seven rane was enough time to train up twenty more Hork-Bajir-Controllers, and I didn't care. Either they'd do it to impress the Visser, or they wouldn't, and I'd have an excuse to stall this nightmare for longer. "Dismissed."

If Sub-Visser Twenty-Nine had expected me to promote her on the spot for her innovations, she had been disappointed. We all left the conference room, and I checked the time on my datapad. «Four more hours until we have a gap in our schedule,» Aftran said. «Then we can send word. They have at least three weeks before this becomes a serious problem. The Animorphs will think of something.»

«Not yet, though,» I said grimly. «There's a meeting with Sub-Visser Thirty-Five in Conference Room Two in ten minutes. And I haven't had breakfast yet.»

Human food was a dismal prospect in the Yeerk fleet. Voluntary hosts Earthside got a nice cafeteria. But nothing remotely fresh made it to orbit. I sometimes wondered how I wasn't dead of scurvy after years of eating little but military rations from bags labeled BEEF LUNCH. The only breakfast available was peanut butter on a barely-defrosted English muffin. My underlings avoided me in the mess hall, the other human-Controllers with their sad peanut butter sandwiches and the Hork-Bajir-Controllers with their freeze-dried bark. _Come to think of it,_ Mercurio said, _the food for Hork-Bajir up here might be worse._

«When I was a Hork-Bajir-Controller, I served as a guard on the Blade Ship,» Aftran said. «Trust me, it is worse.»

«Not as bad as when you have to feed, though,» I said grimly. Even though I was kept in a cage the whole time, I could admit it was worse for her than for me. I got a precious hour or two alone in my body to pray. Aftran had to morph Edriss, fend off suck-ups trying to toady up to her in the Pool, and find some privacy so she could demorph and feed in her own body. She was always on the bleeding edge of starvation.

I washed my dry breakfast down with lukewarm water and went to Conference Room Two. Sub-Visser Thirty-Five was another human-Controller, an elegant older woman, so we met in a smaller room without Hork-Bajir and Taxxon accommodations. She was the head of Casualties, keeping track of hosts who became sick, injured, or dead, and dispensing treatments and reassignments accordingly. Meetings with her were never pleasant, and she'd become especially troublesome since I'd redefined what counted as a useful host. Like all bureaucrats, Sub-Visser Thirty-Five resisted change.

She was waiting for me with a holographic projector already set up, her bat dæmon's ears pricking up as I came in. "May the Kandrona shine and strengthen you, Visser One," she said, a greeting that always amused me, since Visser One was far beyond the power of the Kandrona to strengthen. I inclined my head and sat across from the Sub-Visser.

She began, "I take it you have read my complaints – "

"My digital assistant summarized them for me, yes," I said dismissively. It was the Empire equivalent of "my secretary made a note of it," back in my political campaign days. "The meeting isn't about the new host policies, according to your slot in my very busy schedule, so stop wasting my time."

"Of course, Visser One." With a flick of her hand, Sub-Visser Thirty-Five summoned up an image from her holographic projector showing trends in host casualties on Earth over time. It was a familiar figure, with its clear uptick after the GalaxyTree crashed, Elfangor died, and the Animorphs became active. Every one of those casualties represented money drained from the Empire's coffers. Aftran and I kept a close eye on those numbers, waiting for the day when the cost was too great for the Council of Thirteen to continue this war.

"I'm sure you are aware of certain, ah, rumors and theories about the Andalite bandits," Sub-Visser Thirty-Five said. "I decided to test one of these ideas using data from my department." She flicked her wrist, and a new graphic came up. It was host casualties on Earth over time, broken down by species, standardized by number of hosts in each species, filtered down to violent injuries and deaths caused by enemy combatants.

My spit turned to acid in my mouth, and my pulse thudded so hard in my throat I wondered if the Sub-Visser could see my jugular jump against my skin. It was a familiar figure. Edriss had put it together herself. It hadn't been easy to put together – the data were horribly disorganized, and if you didn't control for human hosts in the military and the criminal element the numbers got skewed – but once you did, the picture was clear.

"Since the Andalite bandits landed on earth, the number of deaths in combat have gone up," Sub-Visser Thirty-Five explained, unnecessarily. "But here I've color-coded these curves by host species, and if you look at the pink, you'll see that the human deaths in combat have actually _declined_ while those of Hork-Bajir and Taxxons have risen enormously." She waved her hand again, and the graph shifted. "This is combat injuries. Those have increased in humans, but only slightly, while again in Hork-Bajir and Taxxons they have sharply increased." The next holo-image showed statistical results. "I ran regressions on the data to verify and the differences come out significant." She raised her eyebrows expectantly, waiting for my reaction.

I said nothing, just leaned back in my seat and gestured for the Sub-Visser to go on. Inside my head Aftran was going «Fuck fuck fuck FUCK! Eva, how are you doing this? Your mind is so – it's like you've just drained out your – »

Sub-Visser Thirty-Five cleared her throat, a little nervously. It was always safer to let a Visser draw their own conclusions than to have to present your own for appraisal. "Now, the question this raises for me is: why would the Andalite bandits care about sparing humans more than any other species? We all know that Andalites do not view any species as remarkable besides their own. Certainly they have no reason to feel particularly daunted by the prospect of defeating a human in battle." She paused again, waiting for me to fill in. When I didn't, she licked her lips and said, "Many questions still remain about the day Beast Elfangor was defeated. We know from Visser Five's various failed attempts to acquire an Escafil Device that there is one on Earth."

«Okay. Okay, you're scaring me, Eva, but we'll deal with that later. There's no bullshitting our way out of this, is there?» Aftran said. «That evidence has got us in a corner. If we try to deflect this, it will be seen as evidence of covert human sympathy, which is already a persistent rumor surrounding Visser One.» We often spoke about Visser One like another living person, a persona we constructed together. When she sensed my reluctant agreement, she said aloud, "You're suggesting that some, or even most, of the so-called Andalite bandits are human, which is why they spare human-Controllers in combat."

Sub-Visser Thirty-Five's bat dæmon's ears swiveled toward me. "You agree," he said, his eyes alight.

"It has occurred to me as a possibility after the bandits used the Escafil Device on that human boy. It seemed like an unusual choice for a band of Andalite guerrilla warriors. But I never had the data to back up my speculations until now," I said. Flattery would get you everywhere in the Empire. "Now I wonder if the bandits ever infiltrated the Pool in their own human forms. We could go through camera footage and cross-reference it against personnel files of our human-Controllers." With the amount of video taken on various cameras around the Pool, that task would be very time-consuming – and give the Animorphs more time to figure out their response.

"If I may, Visser," Sub-Visser Thirty-Five said, "I think I may have a more efficient solution. My medics in Casualties have collected blood from hosts immediately after combat and found human DNA samples that did not match any human-Controllers on file. Many of these cases will simply be contamination from the scene, of course, but blood the bandits spill in combat is an untapped resource we can use to track them down. I've already collected some blood from Hork-Bajir blades in anticipation of this meeting. All I need is funding. Put a few of our people in blood banks and hospitals around Santa Barbara, and we can search for a match, or a partial match with relatives."

I eyed Sub-Visser Thirty-Five. «She's going to be promoted to Visser for this, and she knows it,» Aftran said.

«And there's not a thing we can do about it,» I thought. «The expense is so small and the possible reward so great – the Council would have my head if I didn't do this. God, I should have been an Esplin. No one would have dared come to him with something like this. She might have been sitting on this for months, a year even. She came well-prepared enough that I think she must have.»

«Only one thing to do,» Aftran said. «Warn the Animorphs. They'll have to evacuate to the Hork-Bajir valley.»

«With their families,» I thought. «The partial matches – »

«Oh, sweet Virgin Mary, _Peter_ ,» Mercurio said.

I kept my face stone and said, "Granted. I'll instruct the Sharing to target hospital administrators, by force if necessary. You can assign appropriately trained biologists to the hosts. I'll send you the host assignments as soon as it's done."

Sub-Visser Thirty-Five's eyes burned with fanatic light. She clenched her fist. "We'll show Visser Five. Years in charge, and he never captured the bandits. Under _your_ leadership, we'll have them inside of a month!"

Resentment of Visser Five. An interesting motive, more common than I had guessed before Aftran and I had been promoted, and Yeerks could express it openly. But there was no time for that. "I'm putting this at top priority. I'll go send the order at my terminal now. You are dismissed."

I walked as briskly to my quarters as Mercurio's legs would allow. I canceled my next meeting. I dictated orders to my terminal for the Sharing and the budget office. The heat rose in my face as I engaged the cryptographic protocols for my message to Bachu. «Stop,» Aftran said. Not forcing me to stop, as she might have, just saying, «Eva, please, stop.»

"What is it?" Mercurio snapped.

«You can't put off your feelings forever. You need to work out what's in your head right now, or you'll shout this message instead of saying it,» Aftran said. «Either calm yourself down or I'll do it for you.»

I hated when Aftran tapped into my amygdala or whatever else she did to bring down my blood pressure and ease my breath when I got like this. Mercurio and I preferred to just get each other through it. But there was no time for that. "Do it," Mercurio ordered.

I wrapped an arm around Mercurio for support as the tension fled out of me, leaving me limp and exhausted with fear. I could have crawled back to bed and fallen right back to sleep; I had never been a morning person before Edriss forced me to be one. I gathered myself in my seat and gave the command. "Record."

Switching to Spanish, I said, "Alert. Alert. Urgent. The resistance is about to be exposed. I repeat, you are burned. A subordinate came to me with evidence that you're human. It is such compelling evidence I can't stall her without exposing myself, especially because Marco is my son – they'll call me a host sympathizer. By the time you get this message, there will be almost no time. Get your families to safety, get yourselves to safety, and _don't_ appear in public as yourselves.

I won't tell you what decisions to make, but I will tell you that Peter is in the most danger, because of his connection to me. If you play him this message, he'll come with you without a fuss." Then I switched to my third language, Mandarin, that I'd learned for his sake. My accent was much better now that Edriss had used the language to charm poor dupes into the Sharing instead of just gossiping with the staff of the Szechuan place around the corner. "Peter, Mirazai, it's me, Eva. I'm alive. I didn't mean to cause you so much pain, and I am so sorry. But there's one more thing I need to ask you to do. Trust Marco, and do whatever he tells you to do. Do you remember that night when I told you to stay away from the military, because if you did, they would come for you? I know you did what I asked. But they're coming for you anyway. Go with Marco. Be safe. Hold your wife close. I love you."

 **Tom**

This is my third time trying to journal, like Luis says I should do. He says it'll help with my fine motor and emotional development. I kind of hate reliving all my fuck-ups. They look even worse when I write it all down and I see how I could have done it differently. Not to mention my handwriting looks like a six-year-old's these days. But I'm terrified right now, and the Hork-Bajir and the Chee won't really get it, so it's either write it down or ride this awful energy all the way to something really stupid.

I was having a shitty day. When I got up, Dela told me what if I died and I didn't have to do my laundry in the creek today. I told her if being a Controller wasn't a good enough reason to kill myself, then having to do wilderness laundry definitely wasn't. I waited for Luis to come and help me with the laundry, like a damn kid. He has to help me position my arms and stuff so I can soap up and rinse my clothes, and even then I can only do a few shirts myself because it takes me so long. When he set me up with my soap and my three shirts, he went down the creek to speed-clean the rest with his stupid robot arms. I scrubbed my clothes while singing Celine Dion so loudly that Dela knew I wouldn't be able to hear anything she said.

Then I got breakfast from the kitchen after everyone else, like I usually do, so I don't have to talk to the voluntaries. Ruby was there too. She waits for me, even though it takes me twice as long to eat breakfast as she does, because the food falls off my spoon sometimes. Keowe tried to fly over and land on Dela's nose, but she flinched away from it. I'm never going to do anything about my stupid crush on Ruby, and it pisses me off. The Yeerks did enough to me without turning me into a perma-virgin.

Aximili came to visit, which made things better for a little while. Ever since I told him I was interested in Andalites, he comes over sometimes to teach me things about them. I wonder how much the other Animorphs ever ask him about that. He always seems so eager, like he hasn't had the chance to talk about this stuff in ages. Today he taught me about different kinds of Andalite spaceships, making little models out of twigs. He told me stories about battles against the Yeerks that each of the types of ships were involved in. He even told me about battles the Yeerks won. I liked that. He doesn't seem to think it's any less honorable to lose a battle.

I held onto Dela for a long while to keep her calm enough not to say any more creepy shit. Then I got up the courage to ask Aximili, "What do Andalites do with people like me?"

He said, «There are no humans on our planet.»

When he says things like that, I never know if he's playing dumb to stall me, playing dumb so I'll underestimate him, or actually doesn't know what I'm talking about. I rolled my eyes and said, "That's not what I meant. I mean people who are screwed up. Like me." I stuck my hands out in front of me, showing how they shook a little when I tried to hold them flat and still.

Aximili paused for a long while. «You would not consider it kind, or proper, what we do with our cripples.» He paused again. «No, Loren would tell me not to use that word. Disabled. That is the word.»

"Just tell me. I can take it," I said, even though I wasn't sure I could.

«They are recluses,» Aximili said. «They keep minimal contact with the outside world, to maintain their dignity. So they do not have to bear the pity of others.»

"So like me in this valley, then."

Aximili shifted his weight from side to side. I couldn't be sure what his body language meant. «Very like.»

"You're right," I said. "It isn't kind. It sucks. But I guess you're right that people would pity me if I were out there in the world. That would suck too." I thought about it. "What about people who are just screwed up in the head? Like me, but without the…" I flapped my hands to show what I meant.

«Everyone's spirit is affected by war,» Aximili said. «Some more so than others. That does not mean you are "screwed up in the head."»

"Andalites have a better attitude about that than humans, then," I said. "Luis says that, but most humans don't."

«All Andalite warriors have regular sessions with mind-body ritualists. Some need more than the regular sessions. I showed you a ritual, last time I was here. Mind-body ritualists work with their students to create rituals that will help align mind, body, and spirit.»

"Sounds nice," I said. "The Hork-Bajir do something like that. Elgat Kar and her _hrala_ healing for the new-frees. I guess you could call that ritual." I remembered my old rabbi, back before the Sharing, when I still went to temple. "My people, too. Jews. We have prayers for everything. Waking up. Going to sleep. Going to the bathroom, even. None for going crazy, though, as far as I know."

«Perhaps there ought to be,» Aximili said. He is so weird sometimes. I can never tell whether he's joking or not. Marco must find it really frustrating. When I told him so, he said, «Marco knows I do not use human humor.»

I groaned. "See! You did it again! I don't know whether that was a joke or not!"

Right around then our conversation got interrupted by the big crashing rustle of a creche class swinging in through the trees. I've been trying to learn Hork-Bajir language, or the Controller version of it, which is a mix of Galard, the Taxxon-adapted version of Galard, English, and the Hork-Bajir's own words. So Kam Jedet poked his head down and said in his own language, "Naj tell Kam that Tom teach Naj's creche how to make fire. Tom teach Kam's creche?" Their language doesn't have pronouns, and they kind of imply past tense using word order, which explains a lot about why they sound weird in English. I feel really embarrassed for thinking they didn't understand what the past was, before.

I explained to Aximili what Kam had said, and he said, «I know. I have a translation chip implanted in my brain.» Of course he did. Then he bent his eye stalks at me kind of funny and said, «You do not, however. You learned the language yourself.»

I laughed. "Only some. And they've been helping me a lot. Is it cool if I take some time to help them?"

«I would like to see how humans make fire without a tail blade,» Aximili said.

"Come down!" I called up to Kam in his language.

The creche dropped down from the trees, the little ones already sticking the landing. This time, none of them tried to touch Delareyne. That had been really awful. I know they didn't know what they were doing, but both times a teacher had to stand between her and the kids, just as much to stop her as to stop them.

I taught the kids how to make fire with a drill, explaining it to them step by step. I couldn't demonstrate for them, but they were naturals, since they could cut the drill, the tinder, and the fire plate with their blades. Kam turned it into a little lesson about fire safety in the woods, and the kids thanked me in a high-pitched chorus. They were sweet kids. Sweeter than any group of human kids I'd ever had to look after. I smiled up at them as they went.

When they were gone, Aximili said, «The Andalite method is more efficient, but that was interesting to watch,» because he is a little shit. Then he surprised me by saying, «It is kind of you to teach the children.»

I told him I like kids. I guess I always thought I'd have at least three, one day. Not so much anymore. I couldn't live with being afraid I'd lose it and hurt them, now that I know I can lose control of myself like that. I didn't say any of that. I don't know what I said, because it all faded next to what happened next.

Luis ran toward us, faster than I'd ever seen him move, and skidded to a stop. "Aximili, you need to go to Bachu's house, _right now_. She just got word from Eva and Aftran. The other Animorphs are exposed. The Yeerks suspect they're human. They need to evacuate their families here, _now_."

I fell to my knees and clutched Dela to my chest. I don't know if it was because I needed the comfort, or because I was afraid of what she would do if I didn't. I started to lose it. I screamed. Dela bit me to make me stop. Luis told her she didn't have to do that and I could breathe with him instead. So I did that for a while, but it was so hard. I thought it would be so much easier if Dela just kicked until I had no more breath to scream. I was still crying and itching like I was supposed to do something or get hurt, whichever one came first.

Zefirita walked up to Dela, ears laid flat to her head, and said, "I have to ask you to do a hard thing. I need you to record a voice message for another Chee to play back to your family. You have to convince them you're alive and safe, that it's really you speaking. It'll be much easier to get them to come quickly if you do that. Can you do that for them?"

I put Dela down and considered. What was something I could say that only my parents and I would know about?

"Say something in Hebrew," Dela said.

"I don't actually speak Hebrew, stupid," I said. "Just enough from Hebrew school to say the prayers and stuff – oh shit. Jake was too young for Hebrew school when we were first learning to how to pronounce Hebrew words. Do you remember – "

"That you picked Simcha as your Hebrew name and you kept pronouncing it Sim-chuh –"

I smiled and tasted my snot and tears running into my mouth. Yeah, that was right. And then Dad embarrassed me for years by calling me Sim-chuh in front of the other kids at Hebrew school. Yeah. I had it.

"Hey Mom and Dad," I said. I stopped to sniffle and wipe my face. "It's me, Tom. I know it's fucked up that I faked my death, but I'm alive and safe." I paused. How could I begin to explain what had happened to me? "The Sharing isn't what it looks like. It's evil. I had to hide from them, and now you have to come hide here too. We'll be together again soon. Listen to Jake. None of this is his fault. I love you. This is Sim-chuh, signing off."

Now it's just a waiting game. I feel completely fucking helpless. Luis told me to journal about it and went off to tell Toby there'd be new guests in the valley. I guess this is better than talking to him about it. He knows a lot about what war does to people's heads. But he doesn't know what it's like to have a family, and to be scared they might die or worse, and not be able to do anything about it. That's been my life for years. I'm not a Controller anymore, but that part hasn't changed. The powerlessness. Being stuck while everything I love is on the line. I would do anything to have the power to change it.

When Jake comes back. When my parents are safe. I'll ask him. He has the blue box. He can fix this. He can make it so I can fight.


	2. Chapter 2

**Cassie**

The message came to me when I was biking home from school. I didn't recognize the Chee by the hologram, but I knew what she was when she waved to me from the sidewalk and called out, "Cassie! Your tutor Wena wants to talk to you!"

So I turned left when I would've gone straight, and biked to Bachu's house instead of home. Quincy fluttered down from the handlebar onto my hand. I saw that Jake's and Rachel's bikes were already locked to the "Resident parking only after 9 p.m." sign.

Bachu opened the door and let me in. The moment I walked into the living room, the little hairs on my arms stood on end, and bile rose up my throat, sharp and sour. Jake and Marco sat next to each other on the couch, Jake's face in his hands, each of Marco's limbs fidgeting in a different direction. Rachel was punching Abineng's flank, pulling it enough to just sting a little. Merlyse followed Diamanta in ermine form as she slithered in fitful circles on the floor.

Merlyse saw me, jolted, and became a snowshoe hare. Her ears were flat against her back. "They haven't told you."

Fear dried my throat, choking back my words. Quincy said, "Where are Tobias, Ax, and Loren?"

"On their way," Jake said, still looking down at his hands. "Bachu just heard from Eva and Aftran." When he looked up at me, his face was a blank mask, but I could see the film of sweat and the angry red marks where he'd bitten his lips hard enough to break skin. "We're burned, Cassie. The Yeerks suspect we're human. They could come for us any day now. Any minute."

This had always been the nightmare scenario. I'd fantasized about telling my parents the truth for over two years now. But now that the time had come, all I wanted to do was protect them from this disaster. "Then what are we still doing here?" I said through numb lips. "We have to go right now."

"We need everyone here," Jake said. "In case we need to fight. And to guard our families on their way to the valley. We're going to Peter and Nora first. They're the biggest risk, because of Eva. Then Naomi. Then your parents. Then mine."

 _He put his family last,_ Quincy thought. _Of course he put himself last. He's doing the leader thing._

I bit my lip and squeezed my hand around Quincy. I hated this. I hated that we had to decide who to protect first. I hated that Jake had put himself last. But I didn't know how to fix any of this.

Diamanta reared up and hissed, making all of us flinch except Abineng. "That's bullshit and you know it! Yeah, Dad and Nora are top of the list because my mom's a Controller. So how does that put you, the family of a Controller, at the bottom of the list?"

"Tom's dead as far as they're concerned," Merlyse shot back.

"So you think they've forgotten he has a family?" Dia said.

Jake opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off. "Put me last," I said. "Marco's right. All of your families are related to a high-ranking Controller. Mine's not. My parents can wait."

Rachel stopped punching Abi and rested her hands and her forehead on his back. "Stop being stupid, Jake. Haven't your parents been through enough?"

Jake gritted his teeth. "Fine. Marco's house, Rachel's, mine, then Cassie's."

"If it helps," Bachu said gently, reminding us suddenly that she had been in the room the whole time, "I've sent people to your houses to watch them. They'll do what they can short of revealing themselves to keep them from leaving. That won't stop them if they really want to go, or if the Yeerks decide to come take them, but it's better than nothing."

Jake rested his forehead against the back of Merlyse's neck as if he could drain his headache into her. "Okay. Fine. Good. Could your people keep up a watch on our houses after we've gotten everyone out? So we can see who comes to visit."

"Not indefinitely," Bachu said. "But for a couple of weeks, sure."

Jake lifted his head and nodded.

The doorbell rang. Bachu let Loren in. "End farce," Jaxom said, dropping her hologram. I knew right away from the blotchy curdled-milk look on her face that she already knew what was happening.

"Tobias and Ax are outside," she said. Her voice was flat and dead. "We can go now."

When we all started to morph raptor, Bachu said, "Wait. I'm coming with you. I have a message for Peter from Eva. I can take Jake, Marco, Cassie, and Loren in my car – sorry, Abineng."

Our feathers melted away, except Rachel's. Marco studied Bachu but didn't ask. Diamanta's head was on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. "It's fine," Rachel said, a feathered tail bursting out of the base of her spine. "I haven't been in a car since Abi settled. I'll fly with Tobias and Ax."

When Bachu parked by Marco's house, he said, "Cover everyone else with a hologram. Drop it when I tell you to."

Marco got out first, and Jake followed, the hologram shimmering around us. When Marco went in, he held the door long enough for us to pass through.

Peter and Nora were in the living room, drinking tea and talking about work. Mirazai was out of her tank, draped in a comfortable sprawl over Euclid's back. I felt like an intruder. But we were about to be a lot ruder to them than just barging in.

"Hey, Marco," Peter said. "You're home early. And – why are you wearing that?"

It took me a moment to process that, until I remembered that a tight T-shirt and bike shorts weren't actually a normal thing for Marco to wear, as far as his dad was concerned.

"Dad," Marco said. "Nora. Don't freak out. But I need you to listen to me, right now."

Marco was almost never this serious. He had their attention. "Star Trek is kind of real," Diamanta said, and Marco nodded to Bachu, who dropped the hologram.

Nora screamed and dropped her teacup, which shattered on the floor. Euclid hid under the couch, Mirazai still on his back. Peter said, " _Jake_? Who are these – Marco, did you _build_ that robot?"

Marco laughed so hard he had to kind of shove Dia into his mouth to shut himself up. Even I smiled a little. "You know," he said, "I am genuinely flattered that you think I could build something like Bachu. No, Dad. She was built by aliens. No joke. And she has a message for you."

"Greetings, Peter Chen," Bachu said. She never actually said 'Greetings,' normally, but maybe she thought it would fit his and Nora's idea of an alien better if she did. "I have a message for you."

She played back a recording of Eva speaking in Chinese. I didn't understand it, but Peter went pale and blotchy as he heard it, his whole body clenching like a fist. At the end, he said in a small voice, "Marco? What's happening?"

"It's not her fault," Marco said. His eyes were wild, and the words tumbled out of his mouth like he'd been holding them back for years, and now he could finally set them all free. "There are aliens. Yeerks. They took Mom, and they'll take you and Nora too if you don't come with me right this second."

"Peter," Nora said, voice rising in panic. "Was that Eva in that recording?"

Marco blanked a moment, like he'd forgotten his stepmother was there. Then his face went red. "She's alive and she'll kill me if I let you die, Dad! You have to come!" he yelled, holding onto Diamanta as she thrashed around like she might fling herself at Euclid.

But Peter didn't move. It was like his brain had gone into shutdown mode. Nora reached for the phone. She said slowly and calmly, as if to a kid having a meltdown, "Your father is not going to die, Marco. I'm going to call the police and they'll come and help."

I barely even thought about it. I just saw Nora reaching for the phone, my nose stretched out into an elephant trunk, and I smacked her hand away. Nora gave a primal cry of fear and bashed my trunk against the coffee table with a dictionary. Quincy screeched, and my trunk rolled back up into my face. We all breathed heavy and stared at each other.

"I can do stuff like that too," Marco said. Dia flashed her fangs at Nora a little. "Well, not as well as Cassie. But still. We have superpowers and we're trying to use them to save you, so if you could just sit back and let us do that, that would be awesome." He turned back to his dad, his voice going soft. "Hey. Dad. Mom told you to trust me in that message, didn't she? So can you come with me and I'll explain while we get the fuck out of here?"

Nora drew herself up into full math teacher mode. Her dæmon growled. "I'm not going anywhere until you explain yourself, young man – "

Diamanta rattled at Euclid. "No. I don't like you, but Dad loves you for some reason, and I will knock you out and _drag_ you out of here if it'll keep him from turning back into Budweiser's number one customer in Santa Barbara, so help me _God_."

Dia's outburst seemed to have opposite effects on Peter and Nora. Peter seemed to rise up from a deep pool, breathing deep and taking in the world around him. Nora seemed to fade away, her eyes going dim and lost.

"Come on, honey," Peter told Nora. He stood up, gently lifted Mirazai from Euclid's back, and dropped her back in her tank. He looked Marco in the eye. "Is there any time to pack?"

Black fur spread over Marco's body. His face bulged out. Diamanta disappeared. Euclid whimpered, and Peter gasped. It almost took Marco a few seconds to remember that most people found it shocking to see someone's dæmon vanish. I couldn't blame him; I had almost forgotten myself. «I'm fine,» Diamanta said. «I've gone to this other nothing dimension – the Andalites use it for space travel – or something like that – »

"What?" Peter said, a strange light coming on behind his eyes. "Wait, what dimension? I've been working on dimensional research at my – "

«This is not the time, Dad! Bachu the robot has a car! Let's get in!»

Peter nearly had to drag Nora, but they got in Bachu's car, Marco squeezed into the passenger's seat in gorilla morph, still explaining. "Lourdes is at your house," Bachu called up to Rachel, and the car disappeared under a hologram.

We all got wings and flew to Rachel's house. «Let me take the lead on this,» she said. «She's a lawyer. There's no making a case to her. She'll always find a way to win an argument. We get her in the car and I'll explain later.»

Lourdes and her Afghan hound dæmon dæmon were waiting at a bus stop down the street. Rachel told her, «Come on over. My sisters will think the whole doggybot look is really cute.» The Chee walked up to Rachel's house and rang the doorbell.

"Jordan!" I heard Naomi yell from inside. "Can you get that? I'm on a call with a client!"

Jordan's dæmon Tseycal was a flying fox draped across her shoulders, huge ears fixed on Lourdes. She opened the door and said, "Uh, who are you?"

«Now!» Rachel cried in public thought-speech, and zoomed in through the open door. We followed in her crazy charge. Jordan screamed and hid behind Tseycal, who had become a jaguar in a blink of an eye. «Cassie, Jake, come with me. The rest of you talk to Jordan and Sara.»

I knew how Naomi got when she was on a client call. Nothing short of a bald eagle, an osprey, and a peregrine falcon swooping into the room could have torn her away from it. Her cell phone clunked heavily to the floor. Caedhren shrieked like something from the ninth circle of hell and dove right at Jake, slamming him into the kitchen counter. I suddenly had a lot more sympathy for Tobias's complaints about blue jays.

Rachel started to demorph. «Caedhren! Stop attacking Jake! It's me, Rachel!»

Jake was demorphing too. Caedhren stopped pecking him for long enough to say, "What are these voices in my head! How dare you pretend to be my daughter!"

But then a shock of blonde hair melted together from the white feathers of Rachel's head. Caedhren let out a cry and leapt back from Jake. Naomi and Caedhren watched, riveted in horror and wonder, as their daughter and nephew congealed out of birds.

"Mom," Rachel said, eyes blazing. "Jordan and Sara are in danger. We need to get them to safety."

"Rachel?" Naomi said. "Jake? What happened to you?"

"I know I'm being scary," Rachel said. "But what's coming after us is a lot scarier."

Naomi nodded. She put Caedhren on one shoulder and a tote bag on the other. Then she went to get her younger daughters.

I don't think any of us expected what we saw in the den. Two red-tailed hawks sat on the couch, one preening the other – it took me a minute to realize that it was Zyanya preening Tobias's feathers. Sara watched wide-eyed as Lourdes, undisguised, set off a silent holographic light show all around her. Ax was demorphed, Loren still in prairie falcon morph perched on his back, while Jordan and Tseycal giggled at him and said, "You look kind of like if Mewtwo was a centaur."

Without looking away from the dancing lights, Sara said, "Mewtwo isn't blue. Or pointy at the end."

"I don't even want to know right now," Naomi declared to the room at large. "Just tell me they're not the ones after us."

«They're not the ones after us, Naomi,» I said.

"Cassie?" Naomi said, squinting at me. "You're mixed up in this too? Is that why you've been spending so much time with Rachel? I thought maybe you two were – never mind."

"Hang on a minute," Rachel demanded. "You thought Cassie was my _girlfriend_?"

"She would be great for you, honey! I thought I raised you to be open-minded."

Rachel blushed. If I'd been human, my face would've gone hot too. "It's not _that_ , it's just – I'm not dating Cassie. I'm dating him." She pointed at Tobias.

"The bird?"

"Yeah."

"Is he always a bird?"

"Uhhh…"

Tobias seemed to gather up his courage. «Um, hi, Ms. Berenson.»

"Okay, first of all, I never took Dan's name even when we were married," Naomi told Tobias. She turned to Rachel. "Second of all, you can't date a bird, Rachel. Are you sure about Cassie?"

Rachel's face was brick red. "Mom! FOCUS!"

Naomi snapped back into Single Mom Lawyer mode. "Jordan, Sara, we need to go now. It's an emergency, like a fire. We've practiced what to do if there's a fire."

Jordan clutched Tseycal to her chest as a Chihuahua. "Can I pack stuff?"

"If you take less than five minutes," Naomi began, but Rachel cut her off.

"You can pack Sara's meds. Everything else the Chee – " Rachel her hand toward Lourdes – "can replace pretty quick. Let's _go_." While Naomi was still reeling in surprise at her daughter overriding her, Rachel herded Jordan and Sara toward the door. I could faintly hear Jordan asking her if their dad would be okay. I didn't hear Rachel's reply. Finally, Naomi stirred herself to fetch Sara's meds from the bathroom, and they were on their way. I flew outside to keep watch while Jake, Rachel and Ax demorphed.

From the driveway, Lourdes called up to me, "You need to hurry. Your mother keeps trying to leave home, Cassie. Mr. King is doing his best to hold her up, but he can only keep it up so long."

Jake was still inside, morphing. He didn't hear. _We won't tell him,_ Quincy said. _His family has been through so much. They deserve their chance. They live closer to Rachel's house anyway. It'll go quick. Ax has a note from Tom._ My heart beat a rapid tattoo inside my little bird chest.

Lourdes joined Rachel's family in the car, while Rachel flew overhead as an eagle. Just me and Jake left, along with Loren, Ax, and Tobias, who'd already been fighting side by side for a year now, and had no other family here to rescue. We followed Jake to his house.

When we got to his street, there was a dead deer lying in it. «Hey, are you a Chee?» Jake asked it.

The hologram changed from a dead deer to Erek King and his collie dæmon Damaris.

«Okay, good, I would have sounded really dumb if I'd just been talking to a dead deer. I guess they tried to leave, then.»

"Yeah," Erek said. "I need to come with you for this one – I have a recorded voice message from Tom."

Jake circled over the street. «My parents are really fragile right now. Cassie, Loren, demorph and come in with me. Erek, you come too – though maybe look older? Like an adult they can trust?» Erek became an old man with glasses, a yarmulke, and a droopy bloodhound dæmon. «Perfect. Ax, stay on the lookout with Tobias. Loren. You volunteered at a crisis hotline, right? Can you talk to them?»

«I'll try,» Loren said.

We demorphed in the trees behind Jake's house. He had clothes stashed back there. He put them on. I grabbed one of his flannel shirts and threw it on over my leotard, to look a little more decent. Loren just turned off her hologram and stood in a way that reminded me of self-defense classes she and I had taken at Mike's Dæmon Defense, like she was supposed to be wearing it for practice.

We went in through the back door. Steve was on the phone with Animal Control about the dead deer – his emu dæmon Tz'irah squawked indignantly when they were put on hold. Jean passed her salamander dæmon Malachet from hand to hand with the vacant look of someone too sad and overwhelmed to really process what's going on. Steve lowered the phone to his shoulder when he saw us. "Jake? Cassie? What's going on? Who's that with you?"

"I'm Loren and Jaxom, sir, and this is Erek King and Damaris," Loren said in that soft way of hers. "I volunteer at a crisis hotline in town. Erek and I have been helping your son with some challenging events."

Steve hung up the phone, and Jean's eyes focused, Malachet settling alert on her knee. She said, hoarsely, "This is about Tom, isn't it."

Erek produced a tape recorder from his pocket – a cover for how he was just playing back Tom's voice from the speakers in his own body – and pressed play. Merlyse became a jay, perched on the couch behind them, and listened to it along with them. The sound of Tom's sniffling and shaking as he spoke to his parents, from beyond what they thought was his grave, got me crying too. Even Homer reacted, coming into the room barking with excitement at the sound of Tom's voice.

My parents told me about the stages of grief, once. Steve and Jean were going through the reverse of losing a loved one, but they went through the stages anyway. Depression, their eyes clouding over in numb shock at the sound of it. Denial, their jaws dropping open, asking Erek to rewind and play it again and again, whispering to Merlyse behind them, "This can't be." Bargaining, pointing out the parts of the message that had to be real, the corpse they'd seen in the morgue that proved it couldn't be. Anger – "Why now?" Steve demanded. "How long did you know – why didn't you tell us sooner?"

"I've known the whole time," Jake said. "I'm sorry. It's like Tom says in the recording. The Sharing is a really dangerous organization. I helped him get free of them. It was the only way. And now they're coming for you, and I have to take you where Tom is, or they'll get you too. Mom, Dad," he said, and here his steady old-man voice finally broke. Merlyse became a nightingale and let out a long, sad note that seemed too big for her little body. Jake whispered, "They did such terrible things to him. You can't even imagine. They almost destroyed him. I can't let them do that to you."

Tears ran unchecked and silent down Jean's face. She held Malachet to her lips, a prayerful kiss, and petted Homer with her other hand. Tz'irah looked to Jaxom and the hologram of Damaris and said, "You said you've been helping him. Is this – is he – "

Merlyse became a mink and puffed out her fur in outrage, while Jake's face turned to stone. His word and Tom's note weren't enough. Steve and Jean needed confirmation from another adult before they believed he wasn't crazy. After all he'd done to save his family, his love and his word weren't enough.

 _And every moment they don't believe him,_ Quincy whispered, the seconds hammering away inside him like a bird's racing heart, _is a moment we're stuck here while they come for our parents –_

"They tried to take my son, too," Jaxom said. "Tobias. Jake and Cassie have saved him countless times when I couldn't. I needed my son, and Jake did everything he could to help him. Now he and Tom need you."

Jean stood up, Malachet still held to her lips. Steve rose too, and said, "Where do we go?"

"Drive," Jake said. "I'll give directions."

Steve said, "There's, uh, a dead deer blocking the – "

Erek gestured at the window behind them looking out on the street. Jake's parents turned and saw the dead deer was gone, then looked back at us, bewildered. "That was me. I'm sorry. I had to keep you here so we could find you." Erek's hologram flickered, revealing the Chee beneath for a fraction of a second, then came back into focus. Homer barked. Steve swayed, leaning on Tz'irah for support, and Jean's face turned blotchy and clammy like oatmeal gone cold.

Merlyse turned into a tundra swan. She said, "It's okay. He's an android. He's on our side. He'll ride in the car with us."

"Can we bring Homer?" Jean said in a small voice.

"We don't have permission from the Hork-Bajir to bring in animals," Erek said to Jake apologetically. "But we can look after him for you. I'll send someone around to pick him up."

"Erek and the other androids love dogs," Jake explained. "They have their own private dog park. Homer will be happy there."

Slowly, jerkily, as if running on clockwork, Steve and Jean went out to the car with Homer, Jake chivvying them along. Merlyse whispered to Quincy on their way out, "Don't forget to pick up the blue box at your house."

Before she got in the car, Jean turned to face me. "What about your parents? Are they safe? Walter and Michelle are such nice people. When Tom died, they…" She trailed off when she remembered that the whole grieving process had been a terrible lie. Her dæmon attached himself to her face as if to shield it. She got in the backseat next to Jake.

Erek had his hand on the door handle to the passenger's seat. He looked at me, his other hand pausing on top of his holographic dæmon's head. "Cassie, you have to hurry. Mr. King can't delay your mother any longer. She's driving away. I don't know where. If you get there in time, you may be able to stop her before they – "

I was standing out on the porch where anyone could see, _but that doesn't matter anymore, does it,_ Quincy pointed out. So I remembered what my parents had taught me about the biology and anatomy of birds, imagined the osprey in the finest detail, from the six air sacs of its respiratory system to the extra set of muscles around the lens that let its eyes focus so finely, and my body just… dissolved. Whatever channel the blue box had opened between my body and Z-space was wide open, funneling my mind and my flesh and my dæmon to another dimension and spraying out new flesh in the pattern so crystal bright in my mind. I don't know how fast it happened, only that Tobias said, «Holy _shit_ ,» as I flew away. Loren wouldn't have been able to morph as quickly, but she would just have to catch up.

I didn't know which way my mom had gone, so the best I could do was start at my house and fly out from there. Tobias caught up to me quickly, then passed me. «Ask Mr. King which way she went,» I told him, and he sped ahead. I tried to ride the tailwinds as best I could, my osprey mind focused on which one would carry me to my door. Behind me, I vaguely noticed Ax and Loren catching up.

When I got within thought-speech range of Tobias again, he said, «She went into town. She left eight minutes ago. That's all he knows.»

«Why didn't he follow her?» I demanded.

«And leave your dad all alone?» Tobias said. «He's doing his best, Cassie.»

 _Eight minutes,_ Quincy thought desperately. _She could have gone anywhere in eight minutes._

«Go talk to your dad,» Tobias said. «Ask him if he knows where she went. The rest of us can go after her.»

«She has a silver and blue station wagon,» I said, flying a circle around the house. Dad was behind the barn, filling the water troughs for the animals. Oh God, the animals. What would happen to them now? «I need Ax. My dad needs to see proof of aliens or he won't get it.»

«I like your father,» Ax said. «He makes excellent chili, and his dæmon is very elegant.»

«Let's demorph around the other side of the barn,» I said. This time I didn't morph quite so fast, but I could still feel my heart pounding away every second I didn't know where she was, every second she drove farther away.

We walked around to the side of the barn where Dad was filling the troughs. I'd seen three different parental reactions already, but I was still dreading this one so badly I felt my teeth start to chatter. Emeraude saw us first. Her nostrils flared, she gave a wordless cry, and bowled me aside to stand between me and Ax, snorting and tossing her head. "Cassie, stay back! It could be dangerous!"

I reeled. My skin glowed with Emeraude's warmth, power, and deep steadiness everywhere she'd touched me. Emeraude and I hadn't touched since I was a toddler. But she'd done it now, to protect me from what she thought was a monster. Quincy called out, "He won't hurt us, Emeraude! He's an alien called an Andalite. His name is Ax. He's my friend."

Emeraude didn't budge. My dad drank Ax in with his eyes. "An… alien."

«Yes. I come from a planet 82 light-years away. And I have an important question for you.» Ax stared at him dead-on with his main eyes. «Where is your wife?»

Dad blinked. "Oh. Well, uh, I don't know how much you know about Earth and what humans do here, but my wife is a wildlife veterinarian at the Gardens, and she got this really exciting invitation today to do a nature education with a local organization called the Sharing, so she went to the program director's office to meet with them."

I fell to my knees in the wet grass. I held Quincy to my heart with one hand and covered my face with the other. I just knelt there, shaking with tears. None of the other Animorphs would have done the same in my place. It's because my dæmon sleeps in family groups in caves every night, and can't survive more than a few nights alone. I didn't know how to survive without knowing my mother was safe.

From somewhere far away, Tobias said, «Loren and I are flying there right now,» but in my heart, I knew it was too late. It had to have been eleven or twelve minutes by now. The Sharing was closer than that by car. By the time Tobias and Loren got there, they'd be marching her down those long steps. Dragging her, kicking and screaming, to the infestation pier. Even carrying Dashiell, if they had to, leaving her limp and crying and hollowed out. It would be like that first terrible mission to the Pool, when the cop had almost gotten me, but there would be no one there to save her.

Dad knelt with me in the grass and hugged me, careful to leave room for Quincy against my chest. He smelled like hay and mud. "Honey," he said, low. "Can you tell me what's wrong? I don't understand."

It took me a moment to get enough breath between sobs to speak. "The Sharing isn't a local organization, Dad. It's a front. Run by the Yeerk Empire. Aliens. Not Ax's kind. The invitation was a trap. They're going to take her. Make her a _slave_." The word was bitter in my mouth. My foremothers had fought so hard to make sure their daughters would be free. And still, despite all their struggles, my mother's body would be taken from her, used, violated. "I tried!" I wailed into my dad's shoulder. "I tried so hard to protect you from all of this and I – I – "

"Cassandra, baby," Dad said, stroking my back, "it's our job to protect you, not the other way around. Your mama will be okay."

He still didn't understand. I only knew one way to make him understand. I pulled back, tilted my face up, looked him right in the eye. I'm a terrible liar. When you look in my eyes, it's easy to see the truth of what I'm saying. Easiest of all for my parents. "No, Dad," I said, all the shakes gone from my voice. "She won't."

Dad's face went gray. "What are they going to do to her?"

«I am sorry,» Ax interrupted, «but there is no time to explain. The Yeerks will come for you next, Cassie's father. We must take you to safety.»

"But – " Dad said, startling back. "The clinic – "

"If the Yeerks take you, they won't care for the animals," I said, wiping my tears with the back of my wrist. "They don't care. One of your vet students who comes in when you're on vacation will have to take over. We have to _go_. I won't let them take you too."

Dad sighed. He suddenly looked sixty instead of fifty. "I'll grab my emergency kit and start up the truck, then." The truck was what Dad used when he needed to drive somewhere. There was room in the back for Emeraude. How we'd get her down into the valley, I had no idea. My mind was all static.

Dad went inside for his emergency kit. I went inside for the blue box. When I came back out, Ax had morphed northern harrier. Both of us were tired. We had morphed too much in a short time. "Mr. King?" I said. "We need you in the truck."

A bush shimmered and reformed as Mr. King's true form. "I'm sorry, Cassie. I tried to keep her here. I projected a truck doing maintenance on a gas line – a car with a dead engine – she was determined to go, she kept finding other ways out."

"I know," I said, heart aching. "I know you tried. Come on."

We got up in the cab of the truck, Mr. King on the right and me in the middle seat with Quincy in my lap. Dad opened the back of the truck, which groaned as Emeraude got in. He hopped in the driver's seat, saying, "Hey, where's your alien friend? Oh! Holy smokes, Cassie, is that a robot?"

"That's our friend Mr. King, Dad. He's an android."

«I am here,» Ax announced, flying a pass in front of the windshield.

"We can turn into animals," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "It's kind of cool when it isn't totally horrifying."

Dad turned back to me, the whites showing all the way around his eyes. "This is what your side can do. Aliens, robots, turning into animals. And still you're so afraid of these Yeerks."

"They've conquered four planets and have way better technology than us," I said. "And that's not even the really scary part."

I explained the rest of it while he drove into the national forest. Mr. King helped me show what I was talking about with holograms. Dad had to stop when he realized what had probably happened to Mom. He cried silently. I'd never seen him cry before. He left tearstains on his hands on the wheel. The truck rumbled with Emeraude's deep, pained moan.

While we were stopped, Tobias and Loren caught up with us. «We saw her car,» Tobias explained, «but there was no sign of her, inside the building or out. We're pretty sure they took her down to the Yeerk Pool. I'm really sorry.»

Dad spoke, his voice thick with tears. "Who's that? Talking in our heads? It doesn't sound like Ax."

"That's Tobias. He's another Animorph. That's what we call ourselves, the ones who can turn into animals. Mr. King is something different."

Dad looked out the window. "Is that him? The red-tailed hawk that's flying way too close? Or the prairie falcon?"

"The prairie falcon is another Animorph. Loren. He's the red-tail."

Dad turned to me. "They wouldn't have killed her, then. Michelle. They would have… infested her."

I nodded.

"Then we can get her back."

"I'll try, Dad. I'll try."


	3. Chapter 3

PART ONE

3\. WANNA DO SOMETHING REALLY STUPID?

Content warning for talk of self-harm and suicide.

* * *

 **Cassie**

Dad and I looked at each other for another moment. Then he drove as far in as the truck could go. We abandoned it and hiked in from there. Luckily, both Dad and I had hiked the trails together many times. Emeraude moved as a massive shadow among the trees. My mind cleared of anything but the effort in my legs. Then we got to the edge of the valley. Dad gasped at the sight of the Hork-Bajir swinging through the trees. "More aliens?"

"The Hork-Bajir," I said. "They've been living in this valley for a couple years. We're going to be their guests from now on. They're really nice. We'll be safe here."

Emeraude peered along the steep bluffs. "Is there a trail down, or…"

"No," Mr. King said. "My compatriots and I will carry you down, if that's all right with you." On cue, two more Chee hauled themselves over the edge, having climbed up from the valley, holding a big tarp between them. When the holograms came on, I saw they were Luis and Bachu. Dad flinched all over at the transformation.

Emeraude eyed Mr. King and Luis. "I would really rather not, unless it's the only way."

I shrugged. "The Hork-Bajir are amazing climbers. They can get in and out fine. The Chee are really strong. The Animorphs can morph. A good climber could make it. For you, I'm pretty sure this is it. Sorry."

Emeraude sighed. "Fine. I guess there's a first time for everything. Even getting carried down a cliff by robots."

Mr. King threw Dad over his shoulder as if he were a little kid. The other two Chee directed Emeraude to fold herself up in the tarp as much as she could. They wrapped the tarp around her and each took two corners, lifting her up. "Whoa!" she said. "You guys really are strong!"

"Just a minute," I said. I got the blue box out from my pocket and disassembled it into three pieces. I gave one of each to the three Chee. "Disassemble it into all six parts and share it out among the Chee," I said. "If we need it, we'll let you know."

Then the whole strange procession, three Chee and my dad and Emeraude, started to climb down.

I morphed osprey again, my whole body burning with exhaustion. I felt like I could sleep for a day. But as much as I just wanted to curl up in bed against my dad's chest like a little kid, I had to check in with the others first.

They were at the human settlement at the northern end of the valley. The Chee had set up a third yurt in an impressively short time. A fire was lit in the fire pit. I saw Tom among the other humans in the valley, sitting on a bench by the fire, bracketed by his parents, their arms around him. Jake sat next to them on the bench, but just a little apart, his hand resting on his dad's shoulder. Their dæmons all groomed Delareyne's fur, Steve's emu dæmon with her beak, Jean's salamander with his toes, Merlyse in Arctic fox form with her tongue. I couldn't describe the look on Jake's face even if I tried.

There was nothing in the world I wanted less than to ruin this moment. But I had to tell Jake what had happened. My mom was a security risk, now. A weapon that could be used against us. Against me. «Jake.»

Merlyse kept on licking and nuzzling Delareyne, but Jake looked up. When he saw it was me, he stood. Steve turned for a moment to check on him, but when he saw nothing urgent, he turned back to his lost son. Jake's face was carefully blank. "What happened?"

I looked back toward the bluffs. Dad was more than halfway down. I could hear Emeraude's yelps and swears, very faintly. «Dad's here. He's fine. My mom…» I didn't want to tell him. He'd blame himself worse than I was already blaming myself. I had to tell him. «We didn't get there in time. They lured Mom to the Sharing. We're almost sure they have her.» When I saw his face go from blank to stony cold, I added, «Jacob Berenson, this is _not your fault_! If we had gone to your family last – if your parents had been taken – _look at them_ , Jake!»

They were kissing Tom on the temple and stroking his hair. Delareyne had rolled on her back in the bare dirt around the fire pit, kicking her legs in sheer delight.

"You should have this too," Jake said helplessly. " _You_ should have it."

« _You_ have it,» I said. «Enjoy it for a while.» I flew on, back toward where Dad was being lowered to ground. Along the way, I saw Rachel in the kitchen, drawing water into cups. Abineng looked more at home in the half-home, half-camp in the valley than he ever had in the streets and buildings of Santa Barbara. He had room to toss his bristly mane, swing his horns, stand tall.

She caught sight of me. "Lourdes told me what happened to your mom." Her eyes blazed like hot blue flames. "They'll take my dad soon, if they don't have him already. There's no way we can get to him in time to stop it." Then a tiny, hard smile stole across her face. "Wanna do something really stupid?"

Rachel. She was my best friend for a reason. «I'll help you with your really stupid thing if you help me with mine.»

She grinned and raised her cups. "Deal."

 **Toby**

Maybe it's callous of me to say so, but the Animorphs' exposure came at an inconvenient time. I had been called upon to witness the final stage of _thashet_ for Meret Kar and her intended. I had never been honored in this way before, and I was eager to do my part well. But the day of the event, I was given the grim news by Luis, and I had to spring into action, calling a meeting of the people to approve the arrival of the Animorphs' families and expand the human settlement grounds.

By some miracle we finished the important preparations before the Animorphs and their families arrived. But then I had to speak to them about Kref Magh, to explain what they needed to know about my people and how to respect the way we lived in the valley. They indicated their understanding, but I'm not sure how much they really absorbed. Cassie's father Walter seemed to view me as a fascinating new biological specimen. Rachel's mother was mostly preoccupied with her children, especially the youngest, who was distressed at her sudden change in circumstances – and Jake's parents were even more preoccupied with Tom, though understandably so. Marco's stepmother was terrified of me. I think the only one who really listened was Marco's father. Perhaps Marco had told him that it was my people who had saved Eva.

After that, time was running low to get to the event in time, so I swung up into the trees – only to be intercepted by Ax. «Ah, Toby. I had hoped to speak with you, if you have the time.»

I flicked my tail impatiently. "If you'll morph bird and travel with me. I have places to be."

«I understand,» Ax said, and I started on my way south, trusting him to catch up in raptor morph. Soon enough, he did. He said, «Tobias and I saw where they keep the Hork-Bajir children in the Yeerk Pool. It was the greatest barbarity I have seen in this war.»

I picked up the pace to distract myself from the hot splinter of shame between my hearts. Tobias and I had already spoken about this. I hadn't expected Ax to care enough to bring it up, too. "I have heard of these things from my people," I called out between hard bunchings of my muscles as I launched myself from boughs. "I have only seen them once in person, on one of our raids. We weren't able to save the _kawatnoj_. I think of that day often, and regret it sorely."

«Andalites believe that there is nothing more monstrous than to do harm to a child,» he went on. «I wish to free the Hork-Bajir children from this torment.»

I choked down an ugly laugh. Alloran-Semitur-Corass had not cared how many Hork-Bajir children he would kill when he released the quantum virus on my homeworld. But Ax truly believed in this ideal, I could tell. He really wanted to ride to the rescue, an Andalite warrior in his full glory. At length, I said, "My people have a system for our raids. You saw that when you helped us raid that facility in the Dry Lands. You cannot simply expect to lead a squad of our warriors into the Yeerk Pool."

Ax said sheepishly, «I… had not considered the matter from that perspective.»

This time I couldn't hold back the laughter. "No, you hadn't. In fact, I can't in good conscience authorize a raid on the Yeerk Pool at all. The risk of capture is too high. But I'll give you this. The _kawatnoj_ I failed to save were moved from that facility to a different one, but I'm not sure which. If you can find it, then you're welcome to join us on the raid." He certainly had more free time for reconnaissance than I did.

Ax engaged in that peculiar Andalite habit of suddenly turning a conversation very solemn and ceremonial. «I swear to do my best by you, Toby Hamee.» It sounded like the first half of a call-and-response script, but I didn't know what my half was supposed to be.

He had gotten far ahead of me, and had settled at the top of a great Douglas fir to wait. When I caught up to him, I said, "You're hurting Tobias, you know."

«He is hurting me,» Ax replied.

"I share your revulsion at all things Yeerk, Ax. You know it. And yet I cannot deny that his _hrala_ and Rachel's have grown in recent times. Just as Dak's people had to accept that his partnership with a _hruthin_ did his _hrala_ good, so must I accept that it may be good for Tobias to adopt Yeerk ways, as little as I may like or understand it."

Ax began heatedly, «Tobias – »

"No," I said, starting to pick up my pace. "I've said my piece. Think about it. I don't have time to say more. I'm about to officiate a wedding, as the humans would put it."

«Ah,» Ax said, soaring overhead. «Whose?»

"Meret Kar and Ghat Hefrin's."

«Doesn't Ghat Hefrin already have a husband?»

"Yes. His name is Dref Fakash. What of it?"

«Ghat Hefrin can have a husband _and_ a wife?»

"I thought you shared my confusion about human ideals of monogamy," I said. "We talked about it when Tobias had me read _Othello_."

«I do,» Ax said. «I still do not understand why a married person cannot love another. It should be no threat to a truly stable partnership. But I also do not understand how it is possible to have a stable marriage to two different people.»

"Ask Ghat at the wedding party," I suggested. "She's planning to open it up to anyone who would like to come." When he kept following me overhead, I added firmly, "You are _not_ invited to the wedding itself." Finally, he got the message and wheeled away.

The final stage of _thashet_ is private, according to our customs. The only people at the top of the blue oak were me, Meret, Ghat, Dref, and their daughter Magh clinging to her father's back.

"Meret," I said, "Tell me your promises to Ghat Hefrin."

"I promise to love her. I promise to care for her always. I promise to take care of her husband Dref Fakash and her daughter Magh Hefrin. If I find her son Thawet, I promise to free him if I can. I promise to find our family a roosting-tree and trim its boughs to make it home. I promise to help her find her branch of the Tree of Life, whatever it may be. I promise to make of her _hrala_ a great flourishing."

Ghat promised to heal Meret's battle wounds, and wait for her to come home from raids, and to always make sure she had bark to eat, in addition to the traditional promises of love, care, and tending the _hrala_. Magh said she was excited to have Meret in her family, and Dref said nothing but grinned hugely at his wife and her intended. I gave a speech about how Meret had been the one to free Ghat Hefrin in a raid, how she'd buried her head in the dirt and tended to her until the Yeerk died and she was free. Then I declared them _kalashi_ and watched as they stripped bark and fed it to each other, piece by piece. I was so happy for them.

From the forest floor, someone called my name. Not a shout of pain or fear, just calling my attention. I leapt down, leaving the newlyweds and their family a private moment. Bachu was down there. I hung from a bough from my hind legs to hear him. "I'm sorry to interrupt," she said. "But I just got another message from Eva and Aftran that you need to hear."

I braced myself against the tree trunk. The only good news I had ever heard the Chee pass on from Eva and Aftran was Visser Three's demotion and the new unprotected entrance to the Yeerk Pool they'd secured. Everything else had always been a dire warning. And now it seemed that this dire warning was directly relevant to me.

"The Yeerks have figured out how to use _hrala_ sight to detect sentients in morph," Bachu said. "Eva and Aftran are trying to delay implementation, but they can't do it for very long. They suspect that the Yeerks will start to infest Hork-Bajir younger, to start them learning how to use the _hrala_ sight. They don't know what other consequences there might be for Hork-Bajir-Controllers, but they're probably not good."

"Uh," I said, my mind skipping back, "I think I may have – did you tell Ax about this?" I was babbling, but I was ready to do anything to fend off the image of the tiny Hork-Bajir in those terrible Yeerk Pool pens, infested. Especially now that I knew, from Tom's example, what terrible damage a Yeerk could inflict on a child's growing brain – far worse, even, than what could be done to an adult.

"No," she said, politely confused. "I came to you first, since it's your people who will be most affected."

"Oh." So Ax hadn't come to me about the children because he knew they would now be used as weapons to reveal the Animorphs in morph. He'd come because he really cared about them. That was… good. Despite the grim news, I started to feel the stirrings of hope. I'd always known that the Animorphs would never offer to help free my people. If I wanted that, I had to ask, as in the case of Bek Mashar and our joint raid on the facility in the Dry Lands. But now that their greatest weapon, the morphing power, was directly threatened by the Empire's use of Hork-Bajir hosts, freeing my people would become their top priority, at long last. "Can you send a message through your CheeNet? I need to call a meeting of the Guardians of the Galaxy."

 **Jake**

Tom told us the story of how he became a Controller.

I already knew part of it from Temrash. A girl he'd had a crush on, making him think he could impress her if he joined the Sharing. But I hadn't known about what happened after. How he met the girl, Preethi, again in the cages, and she couldn't even bear to come near him because of the way her Yeerk had made her look at him. How Temrash played back Tom's daydreams of his and Preethi's wedding, just to mock him for where his stupid crush had landed him.

My parents were really upset about the brain damage the Yeerks had done to Tom, the way his body never seemed to move quite the way he wanted it to. Dad especially, because with his medical training he could see exactly how bad it was. "You have all this amazing alien technology," he said. "Don't you have something we could use to help Tom?"

Tom said, "There is something that could help. But if we used it… it would kind of be a big deal."

"What do you mean?" Dad said. "What is it?"

"The morphing power," I said heavily. I should have known that Tom had thought of this. I had, of course, but it had always seemed like a bad idea. "When you morph, it heals injuries, as long as it's not a genetic condition. Remember that time I fell off my bike a month ago and got all torn up along my side?" I lifted my shirt and showed the smooth skin on my side. "I wouldn't let you look at it because I knew it'd heal up the next time I morphed."

"Then why don't you let Tom use it?" Mom said.

Erek saved me from that awkward question. He came up to the fire and said, "Toby's calling a Guardians of the Galaxy meeting." Merlyse, lemming-formed, disentangled herself from the big weird pile she'd made with Delareyne, Tz'irah, and Malachet. This had been my first time really getting to be little brother Jake in years. But it was time to get back to being leader Jake. Merlyse became a snow goose next to me, tall, white, and cold. Then Erek turned to Tom and said, "She wants you there, too."

Delareyne lifted her horned head. "Me? Why?"

Erek said, "It has to do with the Hork-Bajir. Toby says you've been a friend to them."

Tom's eyes widened. He actually _blushed_. Merlyse became a reindeer and whispered in my ear, "He's such a teacher's pet."

Dad touched Tom on the arm. "Are you going to be okay, Tom?"

"I dunno," Tom said. "I think so. And Toby asked me to go, so I have to. You don't know her, Dad. She's amazing. Like Jake. A leader in the fight against the Yeerks."

Now it was my turn for my face to prickle. Tom and I hadn't spoken since the big fight we had. I didn't know he still admired me.

"All right," said Dad. "We'll be waiting."

Tom and I went to the meeting rock. Toby was there with her father Jara and Elgat Kar. Bachu and one of the Peace Movement people – I think her name was Julissa – were there, too. And most of the Animorphs. Including Cassie.

She held Quincy against her chest, like he might fly away if she let go. She stood close to Rachel, their sides nearly touching. I wanted to check on her, but I couldn't do it here, in front of everyone. Merlyse gave her a helpless look, and Cassie's eyes and mouth softened a little.

Loren joined the group, and we could begin. Bachu explained to us what was going on with the Hork-Bajir-Controllers. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I could already see where this was going.

Marco said it out loud, like he always seems to do with my most paranoid thoughts. "Morphing's pretty much all we've got going for us. We can still use our battle morphs, because that tells everyone exactly who we are anyway. But once the Hork-Bajir-Controllers all figure this out, it's bye-bye recon missions. Adios to stealth. Auf Wiedersehn to infiltration."

There was nothing to say to that. We all knew we were screwed if we let the Yeerks move forward with this.

"Eva and Aftran said they haven't implemented this yet," I said. "We have time to do something about this. If we help Toby free Hork-Bajir as a full-time job – I mean, it's not like we have to go to school anymore – " Marco smirked, and Rachel gave a harsh laugh. Cassie just looked sad. "We could really cut down on the number of Hork-Bajir they can train to be able to detect us."

"At long last, the Animorphs are deeply concerned about rescuing Hork-Bajir from slavery," Toby said ironically. I tensed, but didn't say anything. I didn't know that Toby resented us for helping humans and not her people. But of course there was nothing to say. We killed Hork-Bajir-Controllers in nearly every battle against the Yeerks. Against whatever huge number we'd killed, we'd helped rescue Jara, Ket, Bek, and half a dozen Hork-Bajir from the facility in the Dry Lands. "I thought this might happen. That's why I've brought Elgat and Jara here." She turned to them. "What can we do? How many of our people can we rescue on raids? How many new-frees can we support and heal at a time?"

Jara and Elgat tried to stick to English, but when they got into the technical details about troops and medical supplies, they switched to their own mish-mash Hork-Bajir language. I could see on Tom's face that he could still follow it. There was a lot going on in his life that I didn't know about. I wished he wouldn't keep me at arm's length, but the only people he seemed to let in were the Chee and Hork-Bajir. Maybe my parents were changing that, now.

Finally, Toby summarized, "We're going to have to put a lot of time into training more people to be warriors, and especially to be healers. We could use some Chee help for training healers, if they are willing."

Bachu nodded. Julie raised her hand and said, "What about us? The human new-frees? I'm a social worker. That's kind of like a _hrala_ -healer. I want to help."

Toby's long neck arched backwards. "I don't doubt your skill, Julie, but what is true for humans may not be true for – "

"Elgat need help," Elgat said. "Hork-Bajir help. Chee help. Human help. Julie welcome."

"Then I defer to Elgat," Toby murmured.

"We can start doing recon," I said. "The Yeerks haven't started training yet, right? Recon is still on the table, so we'd better do it while we still can. We'll find as many Hork-Bajir camps and training facilities as we can. Then we can plan our strikes."

Tom looked at Julie. "I want to help too. I want to free more Hork-Bajir."

Rachel raised her eyebrows. "Your blue belt in karate is not really gonna help here, cuz."

It was kind of a low blow, given that Tom could barely do a push-up these days, let alone bust a karate move. But Tom held firm. "I know," he said. Delareyne tossed her head. "But if I get the morphing power, then I _can_ help."

Everyone did a double take. Tom crossed his arms, stubborn.

I rubbed my temples. "Listen, Tom, I know you really want to get better and fight back after what the Yeerks did to you, but morphing is really dangerous."

"It's not about that," Tom insisted. "I mean, yeah, it'll make my life way less shitty if I don't have the brain damage anymore. But I want to do this for a good reason. It's about the Hork-Bajir. They've done so much to help me since I came here. I mean, Luis is my doctor, and he got me back on my feet, but the Hork-Bajir turned my life around. The least I can do for them is help free their people."

He meant it. It was the same rock-solid determination I see in Rachel all the time, and sometimes in the mirror, when the fog of fear and doubt lifts for a little while.

"This is your decision to make," Toby said. "I'll leave you to it. Come find me if you want some suggestions about where to go scouting." And everyone trickled away, until the only ones left at the meeting rock were us, the Animorphs, and Tom.

"Dude," Dia said to Delareyne, flicking her tongue. "Didn't you attack some poor flamingo dæmon like a month ago for no reason? Who attacks a flamingo? That's fucked up."

"It's not going to happen again," Tom said firmly. "Luis raised my dose. And anyway, morphing will cure my brain damage."

"Newsflash," Marco said, his voice rising. Diamanta's head jabbed forward like an accusing finger. "I started getting panic attacks like a year ago. Morphing didn't do shit to stop that from happening."

"Yeah, I got the memo that I'm gonna be fucked up for the rest of my life, thanks," Tom shot back. "But Jake has nightmares and shit all the time and he can still fight." I cringed a little, but it's not like that was any secret from Tom, when our bedrooms had been so close. "The brain damage is what's really holding me back."

My head was pounding. I knew I should be steering the team toward some kind of decision about this, but this was _Tom_ , and I could feel myself turning back from leader Jake into little brother Jake. _We're demorphing_ , Merlyse thought, a little hysterical. I thought back to the questions we'd asked Toby and Aftran before we'd given them the morphing power. "Why do you want this, Tom?" I asked.

"I told you," Tom said. "I want to be able to join you guys and the Hork-Bajir warriors on raids, to help free Hork-Bajir-Controllers. They've been amazing to me and I want to do something for them. I'm not looking to join up with the Animorphs or anything."

"It's not gonna be easy to get you to the Gardens to acquire a battle morph," Rachel said. "Especially since…" She shot a look at Cassie, then bit her lip. We all fell silent. I hadn't even thought about that. With Cassie's mom taken, the Yeerks had someone on the inside at the Gardens, now.

Tom shrugged. "I can always just morph Hork-Bajir."

I thought about the questions again. The next one had been, How will you keep the secret? But it wasn't so much of a secret anymore. So up next was, "What do you think the dangers are?"

Tom stared at me a moment. Then he said, seriously, "I'm pretty sure there'll be some minds I get when I morph that'll be a lot easier to deal with than my own mind." Delareyne tilted her head, just a little, toward Tobias. "I'm not gonna lie. Sometimes I might get… tempted. But I won't. I couldn't do that to Mom and Dad."

Tobias rucked his feathers up. I grimaced. I hadn't even thought of that, but I had a wild guess about what was going to haunt my nightmares for a while.

Loren shook her head. "I know you mean well, Tom. But the real danger is that when you're at your darkest moment, you'll have a terrible weapon just a thought away." She sat down on the meeting rock and stroked Jaxom between the horns. "I volunteered at my church's crisis hotline. When I had a caller who was in a bad place, and they were worried they were going to hurt themselves, I'd ask them if they owned a gun, and if they did, I'd talk them through locking up the gun and giving the key to someone they trusted. But with the morphing power, you can't lock it up and give away the key. It's always there, even when you're at your worst. Are you sure you're on guard against that danger? And are you sure you'll better off that way than you are now?"

Jaxom said solemnly, "There are far worse things in the world than living with a disability. You can rehabilitate from brain damage and live a full life. I know that better than just about anyone."

Delareyne looked at the ground and kicked at the dirt with her hooves. Tom said slowly, "After Dela attacked Rois… I was so ashamed. I was so fucked up over it. I sat down with Luis and I did everything I could to turn my life around. I've been teaching the Hork-Bajir kids – you can ask Kam Jedet – and I haven't hurt anyone since."

"If you need someone to watch you," Cassie said softly, "if you're in one of those dark places – I could do that. I'm not afraid. I'd stop you from doing anything bad."

A weird shiver went through me. Cassie was being nice to Tom, and I appreciated that. But I couldn't exactly forget about what happened the last time Cassie stopped a dangerous person with the morphing power from doing anything bad.

But Tom didn't know anything about that. He just smiled softly and said, "Thanks, Cassie."

«I say we let him fight,» Tobias said suddenly. «The Hork-Bajir could use all the help they can get. And he really does care about them. Ax and Toby told me about how good he is with the kids.»

"Tom's like me," Rachel said. "He needs to do something or he'll go stir-crazy. He won't have to spend all that time on physical therapy. He can start doing the important stuff he really wants to do, and it'll help kick Yeerk butt. Let's do it."

"So that's Rachel, Tobias and Cassie for, Loren against?" I said.

Marco raised his hand. "I'm against. Call me crazy, but I still think assaulting a guy for no reason is bad. Definitely don't think a month is long enough to work out all the kinks with Luis."

Diamanta slithered toward Jaxom and said, "Hey, look at that. We agree on something. Ain't that a plot twist." Jaxom looked down at her dubiously.

Ax said, «Like Loren, I believe Tom has the best of intentions. However, I agree with Marco that we should wait and see. Before I was given the morphing power at the Academy, I was required to take a class on the Escafil Device and pass an evaluation. Now that all of us are in the war full-time, I see no reason why we cannot implement a similar regimen for those who wish to obtain the morphing power and fight alongside us.»

Everyone looked at me. It was down to me, again. I was terrified of yet another bad thing happening to Tom, who'd been through more than enough. But he must be just as scared for me. Yeah, he was messed up, but weren't all of us at this point? And Tom was _different_ now that our parents were here. He talked to me now. He didn't go on constantly about how much he wanted to kill Yeerks. There was more of the big brother I'd known than I'd seen since there'd been a Yeerk pretending to be him. And if he got past this brain damage, I'd have even more of my big brother back. If I could do this, if I could fight this desperate war, then Tom definitely could.

"Cassie," I said. "Get the blue box."

She nodded and left. Tom hugged me. "Thanks, midget."

I laughed. He was still too thin, and his hug was far too weak, just a light touch of his arms around me. But it still felt nice. "What are you going to morph first?"

"Hork-Bajir, duh," Tom said. "I can't wait to see what _hrala_ looks like. Hey, Ax, how do you do that Frolis Maneuver thing you used to make your human morph?"

I did a double take. When did Ax tell Tom about that? Apparently they'd been hanging out and I'd had no idea. I hadn't known he spoke Hork-Bajir either. So much about my brother I didn't know anymore. But that was about to change. I was going to get the old Tom back. He'd tell me about everything he'd learned from the Hork-Bajir. We'd come up with sports we could play with whatever we had lying around in the valley. I'd get a deck of cards somewhere and we'd play Egyptian Ratscrew with our parents while our dæmons whispered and laughed.

Ax took Tom aside to explain about the Frolis Maneuver. I looked around at everyone else. "I think Ax is right, though. We should come up with some kind of system for training people. I think we're going to need more Animorphs. Soon."

Tobias tilted his head. «Are you saying… the Peace Movement hosts?»

"Well, we know they're not with the Empire," I said. "So if they want to… we should figure out a way to make it happen."

"We can warn them about how it could change their human lives," Loren said.

"How to keep morphing when you're bleeding out," Rachel suggested.

"When _not_ to morph, just because you saw someone being mean to an animal once, _Rachel_ ," Marco said.

"All of that," I agreed. The idea made me excited and uneasy at the same time. I already had too many people to be responsible for. But what better way was there to protect everyone than to get more soldiers on the field?

Cassie came back with the blue box, disassembled. She gave it to Ax to put back together again. When the pieces came together, that weird blue light kindled inside it. Ax offered the box to me. I held it, then looked up at Tom. It felt like I should have dreamed about this before. But I hadn't. I never really let myself think about what would happen one day when Tom was happy and safe and free to fight for what he believed in.

I held out the box to him. "Put your hand on it," I said. "Concentrate."

Merlyse became a gazelle, and they touched nose to nose like mirrors as Tom and I touched the box. All my hair stood on end.

"That's it?" Tom said.

"That's it."

«Toby told me there is to be a wedding party in the valley today,» Ax said, breaking the shivery silence. «Shall we go?»


	4. Chapter 4

**Jake**

The Hork-Bajir know how to throw a party. I already knew that from the _hralathu-ka_ , the settling party, they threw for Marco and Diamanta. We could hear the drumming from a long way off. The party was mostly up in the trees, of course, but the human new-frees were hanging out at ground level, passing around bowls of berries and bags of cookies the Chee had brought in. The guy named Robin, who seemed to have become the leader of the Peace Movement folks in the valley, waved at us as we came up and offered us snacks. I waved back at him, but I didn't feel like being leader Jake again just yet. Marco and Rachel took him up on it. Everyone else moved on. I could see that Elgat Kar was helping Tom get up on a low bough so he could be a little closer to the action in the trees.

I noticed a Hork-Bajir child hanging by her tail from a branch to talk to two kids who had to be sisters, by their look. "My mama marriage day!" the little Hork-Bajir girl said.

The little sister had been spinning her rolled-up armadillo dæmon around in the dirt. She looked up and said, "Is there cake?"

"What is cake?" the Hork-Bajir kid said.

The older sister's dæmon became a bullfrog so his mouth could gape wide open. The girl said, wide-eyed, "You don't know what _cake_ is?"

Merlyse and I looked at each other and smiled. She became a gyrfalcon, flew up to a branch I could climb to, and waited for me to join her. It was much less scary to climb a big tree than when I was a kid, now that I could turn into a bird any time, or morph away a broken leg. On his bough down and to my left, Tom was acquiring Elgat. Above me, Hork-Bajir were laughing in their weird raspy way and flying through the air way too fast for anyone that big. I caught sight of Cassie talking to Ket Halpak on a branch above me. Quincy was hanging upside down from a twig. It was really cute. I wanted badly to talk to her, but I had no idea what to say.

"Come on, you coward," Merlyse muttered, and flew up to the branch next to Cassie, straining the edge of our range. Quincy squeaked hello at Merl, and I sighed and started climbing.

When I swung up next to Cassie, she smiled and said, "Ket just told me she's going to have a baby soon. She's already picked a name. Franaj."

It was weird to hear just one name for a baby, but since it wouldn't have a dæmon, it did make sense. "Wow. So Toby's going to be a big sister."

Ket twisted her neck to look up and around at a pair of Hork-Bajir who were swinging around the trees to the drum music like acrobats on the high bars. "New _kalashi_ ," Ket said with a huge grin. "Meret and Ghat married today."

I blurted out, "So it's a gay wedding?"

Cassie laughed. Ket tilted her head at me. "What is gay?"

I swear I was going to come up with an answer to that eventually, but Cassie took pity on me and said, "There are some men who prefer to be with other men, and some women who prefer to be with other women. We call them gay," while Merlyse hid her head under her wing, embarrassed for me.

Ket considered this. "Ghat have husband, Dref, and wife, Meret. Is gay?"

While my brain tried to process that, Cassie said, "Wait, so was this a three-way wedding today?"

Ket laughed. "No! Ghat marry Dref before. In cage, in Yeerk Pool. Now Ghat marry Meret."

"Won't Dref get jealous?" I said.

Ket tilted her head at me. "What is jealous?"

Merlyse started laughing, then I joined in. I shook my head. "The Hork-Bajir are so cool. You have it all figured out, don't you?"

Cassie and Quincy looked at each other. He pricked his ears at me. Cassie raised her eyebrows and said, "You think it's cool, huh? That Ghat has a husband and a wife?"

I blushed. "I think it's cool that they can do stuff like that without worrying they'll get divorced over it, yeah."

Ket looked up. "Dance open now. Ket will join."

I followed her gaze up. Sure enough, other Hork-Bajir had joined the new couple, the branches groaning and sighing as Hork-Bajir caught them with hands and tails, then leapt away again. Cassie said, "Have fun, Ket!" and we watched as Ket swung long, slow arcs beneath the newlyweds.

Merlyse was looking at Quincy, but I couldn't look at Cassie. I kicked my feet back and forth. Finally, Cassie said softly, "The Chee have been watching my house. Mom came home with a bunch of enforcer types from the Sharing. She's definitely one of them."

I stared at my beat-up sneakers. "Cassie, I am so sorry. If I had explained things to my parents faster – if I had split us up into two teams instead of all going together – or if we'd gotten started without waiting for Loren and – "

" _Look_ at me, Jake." I did. Cassie was angry. I hadn't expected that. "It was _my choice_ to put my family last. I chose it because it was the right thing to do. Don't you _dare_ make this all about you. My God, I've talked to my dad, and even he understands what I did better than you do, and it's the love of his life we're talking about here."

"Okay," I said. "Okay." I held out my hand, and Merlyse became a snow bunting and hopped into my palm. "I know what it's like. Wondering what they're going through. Imagining what it'll be like when you get them back. How fucking scared you get, every minute you remember what's happening to them right now."

"Yeah. I know you do. I… I guess I'm the only one who never had anyone in my family tied up in this war. And now it's my turn." Quincy flew to Cassie's shoulder. "I should find my dad. I don't want to leave him alone too much."

I studied her face. I was no Cassie, but I could tell she was a little too calm about this. Maybe she was cracking up or something and trying to hide it from me. I'd have to keep an eye on her. "I'll come with you?" I said.

"Sure."

I didn't land right, when I jumped off the last branch to the ground, and twisted my ankle, badly. I gritted my teeth against the pain, and instinctively started morphing tiger. I bulked up, my mouth went thick with teeth, and my tongue felt rough against the roof of my mouth. Cassie cleared her throat. I turned around and realized my parents and Cassie's dad were right there, staring at me. I didn't know how I could have missed Emeraude. Merlyse, from a branch overhead, said, "Uh, sorry guys, hang on a sec," and I continued the morph until the ligament set, then reversed it.

Dad looked down at my foot and said, "That is the most remarkable medical technology I ever…" His eyes glazed over, like he was imagining all of the things he could cure if he had the blue box.

Mom said, "Do you do that every time you get hurt?"

"If it's safe to, yeah," I said. "I've kind of gotten used to it, I guess."

My parents shook their heads. Tz'irah bent down and whispered something to Malachet. I was blushing again. Quincy and Emeraude were whispering to each other, too, leaving me and Merlyse standing there awkwardly. Finally, Mom nodded toward the Peace Movement hosts and said, "Who are they? They seem to know what's going on around here."

I looked at Cassie, because she would be better than me at explaining what the Peace Movement was, but she was still distracted with her dad. "They, um, they're former Controllers. But they kinda lucked out, I guess. They got infested with Yeerks from the Peace Movement. That's a group of Yeerks who believe that they shouldn't go around invading planets and conquering people."

Mom said, "There are Yeerks who…"

I shrugged. "Yeah. Actually, it's thanks to one of those Yeerks we were able to get you out in time. She gave us a tip that the Yeerks were close to figuring out who we are, and we needed to evacuate you." I turned toward the Peace Movement people gathered around the fire pit and gestured for my parents to follow. "Come on. I'll introduce you. It's getting dark anyway. It'll be nicer by the fire." I didn't want my parents to end up like Tom, friendless in the valley because they couldn't stand talking to people who'd gotten along with Peace Movement Yeerks.

The Peace Movement folks were sorted roughly by age. The little kids were playing with two small Hork-Bajir girls. I introduced my parents to Robin, Jamal, and Julie and let them hang out with the adults. The teenagers, Melissa, Miguel, and Ruby, were in a little knot under a tree, where a teenage Hork-Bajir clung to a branch and listened to their conversation with interest, chiming in with a word or two from time to time. I stopped, said hi, and listened for a little while. They were talking about the living conditions in the human section of the valley. They asked me if I could bring in books or something, because they got pretty bored sometimes. I told them I'd see what I could do, and moved on.

When I was out of earshot of the new-frees, the teenage Hork-Bajir thought-spoke to me, «What's wrong, Jake? Don't recognize your own brother?»

I froze in my tracks. Merl became a snowy owl and flew up to Tom's branch. " _Tom_!" she hissed. "You can't just morph to get away from the problems _you made_ with those people! Morphing is serious shit, not a fucking cheat code to get out of awkward social situations!"

Tom retreated from the new-free teenagers on his branch. «I don't know if I can make it right. How can it ever be right between me and people who love Yeerks?»

"Maybe it can't be right," Merl said. "That's your business. But that means you can't hang out with them as a Hork-Bajir if they wouldn't let you do it as a human."

«Fine,» Delareyne said, and leapt further up into the trees.

"Wait!" Merl called, but he was gone. She flew back to my shoulder. "I didn't even get to ask how he liked Hork-Bajir morph."

I clutched at my hair. "I can't believe he's had the morphing power for like an hour and he's already fucking it up."

"I dunno, I kind of can," Merlyse said darkly. "It's not like we gave him the Uncle Ben speech about great power and great responsibility first."

"Dammit," I said, pacing around the outer edge of the firelight. "Should we have done that?"

"Hey," Merlyse whispered in my ear. "Don't look, but Cassie and Rachel are having some kind of secret head-to-head to your left."

"Don't eavesdrop on Cassie, it's rude," I whispered back.

"I'm not eavesdropping! I just noticed they're having some kind of secret talk. Owl eyes and all that. She's probably just talking to Rachel about her mom. Oh! Now Loren is coming. I think she wants to talk to us."

"Why am I suddenly Mr. Popular?"

"Well, you don't get to be Anonymous High School Student #57 anymore," Merl said. "It's General Jake full-time now."

I clamped down on my swearing so Loren and Jaxom wouldn't get an earful. I could see them now, too. Loren had a quiet, focused look on her face, and I knew that Merlyse was right: it was time to be General Jake.

"Hi, Jake," Loren said. "I'm happy to see your parents made it here okay. Do you have a minute?"

I suppressed a heavy sigh. "Sure. What's up?"

"I have a mission I want to do with Ax and Tobias," Loren said, "but I want to be smart about it." Jaxom tilted his head, and the firelight shone in his black eyes. "Tell me what you think of my plan."

 **Tobias**

It was getting dark at the wedding party. I watched the wedding guests gather in the trees to watch the _hrala_ flow through Kref Magh in the moonlight, and thought about morphing Hork-Bajir so I could join them. But then there were human and Andalite footsteps below me, and I looked down and saw Ax and Loren dimly, by the last red glow of the sun into the valley. _I don't want to hear anything they have to say to me,_ Elhariel said darkly, and I spread my wings to fly further up into the trees.

"Wait," Loren called up to me. "Tobias, I need your help."

 _She means it, Elhariel,_ I thought. _I have to at least listen._ I floated down to a lower branch and tilted my head. I wasn't going to speak until I was sure my words wouldn't be turned against me.

"I need both of you," Loren said, looking back and forth between me and Ax. "And I'm sorry, but it's urgent. I don't have time for us all to make up first. But I'm ready to put it all aside for now." Lines of pain creased around her eyes. "You heard about what Eva and Aftran did. That program to recruit people with disabilities as hosts. Now that the Yeerks know who I am, my friends, my blind friends, are more of a target than ever. Most of them are probably taken by now. But if there's any left free, I need to warn them. I need to tell them to stay away, and to spread the word that the Sharing doesn't have our best interests at heart."

«And if you are wrong about who is taken and who is not?» Ax said.

"That's why I need you," Loren said. "I talked to Jake about this. He said I can go ahead as long as we do enough surveillance that we're pretty sure what's going on. And you'll be right there as backup when I talk to them, in case it's a trap. If you're willing to do it, that is."

 _Why should you help her when she won't accept you and thinks you're broken?_ Elhariel wondered.

«What do you think this will do to the Sharing's efforts?» Ax said.

"Maybe it'll keep them from getting as many disabled hosts as they wanted," Loren said. "But even if it doesn't… I wouldn't trade having you two as family for anything in the world. But before you found me, they were all the family I had." She wiped away tears with the back of her hand. "When everyone else thought I was ugly or useless or a burden, they told me I was worth something. They taught me I could have a life, even after everything the accident took from me. This is the _least_ I can do for them, after all the time I spent lying to them and pushing them away."

I remembered some flashes from when I infested Loren: being loved, supported, known by her blind friends. It was wrong that I knew these things, as Loren had said to me in that argument I could never forget. But I couldn't un-know them. And it meant that I understood. «Okay. If we call a truce – I'll help.»

«I will help also,» Ax said.

"Thank you," Loren said. "I thought – I thought we could go looking for Hork-Bajir tomorrow, like we're all supposed to be doing now, and then at night morph owl and start watching my low-vision support group."

«All right,» I said cautiously. I was worried the truce might not last if we spent all day together, but maybe it would be a good test run for whether we could do this side mission without problems, too. «See you tomorrow.»

As I spread my wings for takeoff, I saw very dimly that glazed over silence between Loren and Ax that meant Ax was telling her something in private thought-speech. Suddenly the appeal of _hrala_ -watching with the Hork-Bajir crumbled to ash. Everyone in the valley was spending this evening with their family. Except for me.

 _Then let's leave the valley,_ Elhariel said suddenly. _There are people who want us there. The Chee must have mentioned like three times that the rogue Yeerks want to talk to us._

 _And now I don't have to lie to them that I'm an Andalite,_ I thought. I morphed owl, then took off and looked for a Chee to talk to. I saw the glint of moonlight on chrome as a Chee did some last-minute improvements on the new yurt, though without the hologram I couldn't tell which one it was. «Hey,» I said. «Sorry to interrupt. Could you check on the CheeNet if now is a good time to visit the Aftran Plisam Pool?»

The Chee paused, then said, "Bachu says the Pool never sleeps. Come on over."

«Could you ask her to invite Illim and Tidwell? I'm about to have a big talk with the Pool, and they might as well be there for this.»

The Chee nodded, then went back to work. I flew through the night to Bachu's house. When I tapped at an upper-story window, she let me in. Her hologram was down. "I'm covering Tidwell's car," she explained. "A lot of Controllers are under close scrutiny right now. I don't want to draw a connection between him and this house."

I demorphed and rode to the basement perched on her arm. Tidwell stood beside the Yeerk Pool, his dæmon's tank open, fiddling with his cuffs as if he were thinking about taking a swim. "Noorlin," he said when he saw me – or maybe it was Illim. He knew I was the one who always morphed red-tail. His eyes were wide. He licked his lips, took a quick breath. "Is it true? The rumors I've heard today?"

I broadcast my thought-speech. The Aftran Plisam Pool deserved answers, too. «The rumors are true, Illim. The guerilla band you call the Andalite bandits… we're actually human. All of us except one. We call ourselves Animorphs.»

"Animorphs. Guardians of the Galaxy," Tidwell murmured. His face was pale. "You're children, aren't you? Teenagers. Do I know you?"

«You probably haven't heard of me,» I said, this time in private thought-speech. «Unless you've heard of a missing kid called Tobias Calladan and Elhariel.»

"Of course I've heard of you," Tidwell said. Horrifyingly, he looked like he was about to cry. "Do you think any teacher can just… not notice when a kid goes missing? We have pictures of you up in the teachers' lounge. We have pictures of all the kids in the school system who've gone missing in the last five years. Taylor Dejean and Marling – well, both of us know what happened to her, I think. David Finlay and Kirianor." I couldn't help rucking my feathers up at that. I've seen Amber Alerts before, and the thought of one of those about Taylor or David made me sick. "And you. Some of the teachers noticed – I mean, they thought the worst had happened to you. But you're alive. You…" He trailed off, staring right through me. I felt totally exposed. It nauseated me to think that Tidwell had pitied some grainy photo of me on a bulletin board for years.

Tidwell's face went firm, and I got the feeling that Illim was behind the wheel now. I was relieved. Illim, at least, was too alien to really understand how fucked up this all was. He gestured to the Pool. "You might as well go in, if you're used to morphing Yoort. My people need to talk to you. Now more than ever, Tobias Calladan and Elhariel."

«Um,» I said. «I don't speak Yeerk sonar language or whatever.»

"That's all right," Illim said. "We have a different form of communication. Palp to palp, we call it. It's a direct transfer. Images, feelings, impressions of memories."

 _Like when Elfangor spoke to us at the construction site,_ Elhariel said. _Images of the Yeerks. Those weird memories about how the morphing power works. The courage._ _More and more about Iskoort society makes sense._

 _I still don't get why the Lego look,_ I thought, but I glided from Bachu's arm to the edge of the Pool. I focused on the Yoort DNA inside me, and my eyes went dark in a rush of slime.

"Um," Tidwell said. "That's not how morphing is supposed to work, right?"

«I'm kind of an exception,» I said. «It's a long, weird story. Like most things that have ever happened to the Animorphs.»

Here's the thing. I've been in the Empire's big Yeerk Pool before, even if it was only for a few minutes. I've been in the Yoort pool system on Garzh, even if it was only for a little longer than that. The Aftran Plisam Pool wasn't like either of those. Unlike the Yoort pool system, it was very plain. But it was way too small to be anything like the Yeerk Pool. In a weird, totally alien way, it reminded me of recess, when I was living with my aunt and went to a worse school. The schoolyard was just broken-up blacktop with weeds coming up through the cracks, but when it was time for recess, everyone was so glad not to be cooped up in the gray old building anymore that they rushed all over that schoolyard like it was Wonderland. It was kind of sweet and kind of sad at the same time.

Something changed in the water – maybe Illim said something, or maybe the current shifted to carry my strange Yoort scent through the Pool – and the Yeerks gathered around me. My skin vibrated with hundreds of sonar clicks bouncing off it. The water around me became close and turbulent. When I clicked my sonar back at the gathering crowd, their larger Yeerk bodies made me feel like I was surrounded by giants, all grasping for me with their palps. I shrank back against the wall, surrounded by a great nonsense of sonar song and electrical patterns.

A pair of palps made contact with mine. I felt slick scales against the rough pad of a thumb, the ache in my right arm at the end of the day from dragging the fish tank around. It was strangely touching that Illim identified himself to me through Tidwell's most intimate experiences. It didn't feel so crowded in the Aftran Plisam Pool anymore, though I couldn't say whether it was because the Yeerks had backed off, or because I'd settled into the Yoort instincts of safety in the pool, or because it all suddenly seemed so distant compared to the closeness of Yeerk and Yoort with a host.

Illim disengaged. I said to the Pool at large, «My name is Tobias Calladan. My dæmon is a European storm-petrel named Elhariel. I'm an Animorph. I know we lied to you all about being Andalites. I can't apologize for that. Until today, our anonymity protected us. We're just human kids. Teenagers. If any word had gotten to the Empire about that – well. We had advance warning from Aftran that we'd been burned, and even then, one of the Animorphs, Cassie, lost her mom. We didn't evacuate her in time, and she was taken. Another Animorph, Rachel… I guess her dad is lost, too. He doesn't live in California, so we couldn't get to him. And now any time we appear as human in public, we're in danger. So we had to lie about that. But now the Empire knows about us, so we don't have to lie anymore.

«I didn't lie about anything I told you that day when… well, you know. When you first came here, to the Aftran Plisam Pool. You really do have broken roots. I still think you can fix them by doing what I did with Rachel. I wasn't lying about that, either. So now you know that some humans are okay with morphing Yeerks and doing the whole… mind-melding thing. Um. You can do your palp to palp thing to ask me questions, but one at a time, please? And I might have to stop if it gets to be too much.»

Illim carefully shepherded one Yeerk forward out of the press. I trusted him to choose someone who wouldn't be rude or stupid, so I touched palps to the stranger's. I caught the harsh ring of angry thought-speech, and an image of an Andalite that was half actual image, half what an Andalite would look like to sonar clicks if one submerged in a Yeerk Pool – not that that would ever happen. I realized the Yeerk was asking me about Ax, and his anger at me for my admission about me and Rachel. Pain and loneliness stabbed through me. There was an answering soothing pressure, like a hot shower with good water pressure, and I remembered that I was still palp-to-palp with the strange Yeerk. It had felt my pain over Ax, and it was trying to make me feel better. I sent back what I hoped was something like "thank you" and disengaged.

«Okay. Whoever that was asked me about the Andalite who yelled at me about… I need a better word than mind-melding. Isking? You've all heard the story about Garzh and the Iskoort, you know what I mean by that. Yeah, let's call it Isking. I'd forgotten that was public thought-speech, when he yelled at me about Isking with Rachel. I guess I can see why that would be important to you guys. This is, um. Not really gonna be fun for any of us to talk about. But Ax is the only real Andalite in our little group. And he's super not okay with the Isking. He thinks I – I'm violating Rachel. And I could never do that to her. All of you who had hosts get that, right? You could never hurt them like that, right?»

I don't understand Yeerk language. But there was some kind of static in the water that felt like agreement.

«Yeah. And it's especially rough because… man, this is even weirder to explain to you guys than it was to explain to the Animorphs. Ax is my uncle. His name is really Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. His brother – my father – is Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul. Years and years ago, he ran away from the war and used the morphing technology to become human and… well, the rest is history. Me. Morphing is weird like that. I know you guys hate him. He killed a lot of Yeerks. Well, so have I. I'm sorry about that. I really am. But who cares whether I'm sorry? Everyone I killed is still dead. Everyone my father killed is still dead. If anything I've done has made that better, well, then you're better at forgiving me than I am at forgiving myself.» I paused. «Anything else?»

The Yeerks seemed to be passing something to each other, palp-to-palp, like chain mail for feelings. Finally, it got passed to Illim, and he passed it to me.

It was gratitude. Gratitude that the son of Beast Elfangor could learn the ways of Yeerks, and even feel sorry for killing them in a war to defend my planet. Hope that even someone who had been born from the bloodiest of this war could wish for something better.

«Okay,» I whispered. «Thanks. I think that's enough for one day.»

As I demorphed, some part of me wished that Ax and Loren could have been there with me, to feel how strange and awe-inspiring it was, to be in that Pool surrounded by alien giants who just wanted some way to understand me. But the voice of reason, whose name was Elhariel, told me they couldn't possibly have found the otherworldly beauty in it.


	5. Chapter 5

**James**

 **Two weeks ago**

The woman with the crab dæmon was speaking to us officially as an emissary from an alien civilization, and I was pretty sure she wasn't lying.

It would be easy to fake the fancy beam weapon on her belt – I've been to San Diego Comic-Con and seen props at least as cool – but the incredibly realistic hologram next to her that changed to different 3-D images as she spoke had me stumped as to how any human technology could produce it.

"It's the real deal all right," my dæmon, Cleyr, told Ismelda, a vole dæmon who was too low-vision to tell exactly how cool the hologram tech was.

Ismelda said, loud enough for everyone on the ward who was hearing to catch, "So if she's the real deal, why did she come to us?"

The woman with the crab dæmon nodded – her name was Mai, and her dæmon's was Okuna, I vaguely remembered. "An excellent question. Our Pools – the places where we live when we don't have hosts – are not especially nice places for us. We much prefer to have hosts, so we can perceive and interact with the world. Your hospital may seem boring to you, but I assure you we would much prefer to be here, with you as hosts. And we think the arrangement could be of great benefit to you as well. We make great company if you're lonely. And we have direct access to parts of your brain you can't voluntarily control yourself. I learned English as a second language, but with a Yeerk to guide my fine muscle control, I now speak it with a flawless accent."

That definitely got the ward's interest. I still wasn't sure I bought the aliens' reasons for wanting to get up in our brains, but if we could get enough out of the partnership, it would still be worth it.

"I'd like a trial run, if that's possible," I said. "Just five minutes with one in my head, to see what it's like."

Mai blinked. "Oh! Yes, of course." She pulled out a plastic container from her briefcase. "Come on up."

Cleyr whispered to Taurim, a cedar waxwing dæmon, "If they break their promise – if I'm still laid up after five minutes – tell Collette to kick that lady's ass."

I rolled up to Mai with Cleyr, Taurim riding on her back. Mai took out a weird slug from the container and held it up to my ear. It was cool and slimy. _Whatever,_ I told Cleyr. _This isn't even the grossest thing I've had to do "for my own good" in this hospital._

My ear canal stretched in ways it wasn't really supposed to stretch, but it didn't really hurt, either. It reminded me of the time the doctors had to stick a camera on a wire down my nostril to check out some stomach problems I was having, but not quite as bad as that. Then I got kind of confused and lost the sense of my body, like I was just coming up from general anesthesia.

There was another presence in my mind. It drank in the sight of the hospital ward like it was thirsty, even though it was as boring sterile white as ever. It listened to the footsteps of nurses doing the rounds out in the corridor, Kelly describing what was happening to me to Julio and Ismelda, who couldn't quite see, all with equal interest. It was like when Pedro got to be wheeled out of the ward to visit someplace else, even if it was just a consultation with a specialist in another wing. He watched everything, grateful for every detail. Mai hadn't been lying about this, either. The Yeerks really did want to perceive and interact with the world. This one, at least, was starving for it.

I still couldn't move a muscle, not even my eyelids, but the phantom ache in my legs was gone. I felt muscles unclench that only ever seemed to relax when the physio guy came around a few times a year to give massages. It was so peaceful. My mind drifted like I was about to fall into a deep and easy sleep. The Yeerk seemed to have cataloged my body, and was moving on to Cleyr's. It opened her mouth and clacked her tusks together. «What kind of pig _are_ you?» the Yeerk wondered inside my head.

«Now you're in for it,» I thought.

«I am _NOT_ a pig!» Cleyr roared silently. «I'm a javelina!»

The Yeerk digged around in my memory like it was a file cabinet, and pulled up everything I knew about javelinas. «Ah. So I see. Earth has so very many species.»

«Whoa,» I said. «We're talking _thought-to-thought_. I can show you anything I want!» I remembered when Cleyr first settled, and some of us were on a trip out of the ward to see Toy Story 2. Some total jerk kid at the mall made fun of her and called her a pig, and she showed off her long, javelin-sharp tusks at his parrot dæmon and scared her so bad she tried to pretend she'd never seen me or Cleyr at all. «Dude, Pedro is going to _love_ you guys! This is like, what he's always wanted! It's like the holodeck!»

The Yeerk flexed my hand and un-flexed it. «We are pretty cool,» it said. «You haven't even seen our spaceships in person yet.»

«Okay. I think a lot of my people are going to be into this. I just have one more question, and it's important. Are we allowed to say no?»

The Yeerk considered this for an uncomfortably long time. «Not really. My superiors are highly invested in placing certain individuals in this hospital. But if you agree, you'll have a lot more negotiating power with Sub-Visser Two-Twenty over there. She won't feel the need to watch you nearly as much. She won't pair you off with Yeerks who are known to be harsh with hosts. She'll get you perks, like movie nights at the ward. And if you should fall ill, we have medical resources to call on that go beyond what you get from Medicare.»

«I don't like being asked questions I'm not allowed to say no to,» I said. There was no point hiding my cool anger from the Yeerk. «But I can see this being a really good thing for my people if we play our cards right. And I appreciate you being honest with me. Now, your time's up. Please go back in your jar now.»

The Yeerk began to disengage, and I could move my eyes under my own power again. The ache, too, creeped back into my legs. «Out of curiosity,» it said. «What would your friend Collette have done if I hadn't respected your time limit?»

I pictured Collette hitting the buzzer and telling the nurses who came in that the Sharing people were Jehovah's Witnesses who had tried to save our souls. «You're not allowed to proselytize in the hospital,» I explained. «We've had people try to sneak in and do that before. The hospital administration does _not_ react well.»

«Sub-Visser Two-Twenty is very fortunate not to have you as her enemy, James and Cleyr,» the Yeerk said, and it slithered out of my ear into my cupped hand. I put it back in Mai's jar.

"So," said Collette, from behind me. "What did you think?"

I turned around to face the ward. "The aliens are cool," I said. "You're gonna like them." I looked back over my shoulder at Mai. "I think we can make a deal."

 **James**

 **Now**

"Last chance," I told Odret, the absolute asshole who had been assigned to infest Timmy, using the supremely calm voice that has annoyed people who have tried to bully me since time immemorial. "Sub-Visser Two-Twenty will be here any minute. Ask her for a reassignment, or I will reassign your ass to whatever the Yeerk equivalent of Siberia is."

Odret twisted Timmy's face into a sneer. His hornet dæmon, Jia Jia, buzzed her wings menacingly and said, "What are you going to do about it, sick little human child? Complain to the Sub-Visser that your Yeerks aren't nice?"

"That's what I was going to do about it at first," I said. "But then you pissed me off."

Sub-Visser Two-Twenty and the Controller nurse on staff at the hospital, Sam, came in with a portable Yeerk Pool in a briefcase, as they'd done every three days since the first of us, including me, were assigned Yeerks. I could feel a buzz of anticipation from my Yeerk, Velger, when she unfolded it on a low table. They really cut it close with their visits to the ward – by the time they got here with the mini-Pool, all Velger could think about was feeding.

"Anything to report?" said Sub-Visser Two-Twenty. She always asked that before the Yeerks fed, which I thought was stupid, because who could give a good report when they were hungry? But Velger and I had already gone over what to say. I raised my hand. "Yes, Temrash 989?"

I felt a pulse of disgust from Velger, who hated its given name. «All of my spawn-siblings are little waste-streams like Odret over there,» it had explained. It had also told me just to call it "it" instead of "he" or "she." «You humans use "he" and "she" for animals that are similar to you, like dogs and horses, and "it" for animals that are nothing like you, like worms. I'm much more of an "it."»

Cleyr bent her front knees in a little bow. «Take it away, Velger.»

It spoke using my mouth. That was still kind of weird. I was used to nurses moving around my body for me, but no one ever spoke with my mouth before Velger. "I'm sorry, Sub-Visser Two-Twenty, can a few of us speak with you in private? We have a serious matter to discuss."

"Of course." She followed me, Kelly, and Julio into the physical therapy room and closed the door behind us. "Go ahead, Temrash."

"Sub-Visser," Velger said, "I have to report disloyalty among our number. Odret 1188 has been asking us questions about whether we think Visser One is really competent to lead us. They keep talking up Visser Five and how great it would be if they were in charge. They said they know about a plot to remove Visser One and replace them with Visser Five." Velger clenched my fists, as if overcome by Yeerk patriotism. "They're encouraging treachery, and I can't just sit by and let it happen."

The Sub-Visser looked at Kelly and Julio. "Is this true?"

Kelly raised her hand slowly. "It's true," her Yeerk, Margoth, said. "They kept dropping hints about these _connections_ they wanted to get in touch with. I think they might be people in on this plot."

It all went as we'd planned it, everyone dropping in their own version of the story. Sub-Visser Two-Twenty narrowed her eyes, left the room, and brought Odret in.

When she asked him about our accusations, he exploded, through Jia Jia, "Of course it's not true! I'm a loyal Yeerk! Temrash hates me because I'm not soft on my host like they are!"

Sub-Visser Two-Twenty's lips pressed into a thin line. She took a jar out of her briefcase and held it under Timmy's ear. "In," she said. "You're going to have to wait a little longer for your Kandrona, Odret 1188. Until _after_ you tell us everything."

Odret snarled, but there was nothing he could do. If he stayed in Timmy's head, he would starve within a few hours anyway. He slithered into the jar. When she was free, Jia Jia flew in giddy circles around Timmy's chair.

"I'll have a new Yeerk for you next time I come by the ward, Timmy. I have a much more suitable partner in mind." Sub-Visser Two-Twenty tucked the container in her briefcase. "Good work, you three. If you stay loyal like you did today, I'm sure you will regain the full confidence of the Empire. Now, you may feed."

We had an order for this, by some kind of obscure Yeerk ranking system that Velger told me was too boring to explain. While we waited for its turn, it said, «Don't you think that was a little harsh? They're probably going to torture Odret for information.»

«He tortured Timmy for three days,» I said, «and Timmy's had enough torture for three lifetimes. Odret can bite me.»

«Are you a particularly scary human, or would you consider yourself average for your species?»

«Scary,» I said. «It's the only way I can survive living in this place.»

«I am considered a very soft Yeerk,» Velger said, «for what that's worth.»

«That's okay. I didn't sign up for this because I wanted to have a badass in my brain.»

«What did you want, then?»

«I wanted… someone like a nurse, but one who understands me, and doesn't have to leave on rounds, and actually makes my life better. And instead I got an alien dork who thinks I'm Godzilla.» That was true. Velger finds my body ridiculously huge and terrifying, and considers moving me around to be far too much responsibility for it to handle – what if it went on a rampage and broke the hospital? I found its nightmare scenarios hilarious – Cleyr is tough, but she can't knock over an entire dialysis machine.

 _Well_ , Cleyr thought. _Maybe if I really felt like it._

«I'm sorry,» Velger said. «I wish I could be that nurse you wanted.»

«Hey. You're an alien. You were never going to be who I expected. You're all right, Velger.» I leaned my head over the Pool. «Now go photosynthesize or whatever.»

Velger dropped into the Pool, and a mantle of pain and tension closed around me like a cold, dark winter. I like having some time every three days to myself, without Velger. It feels a little more comfortable snuggling with Cleyr without a voyeur inside my head, and we can all watch TV without our Yeerks lobbing comments from the peanut gallery about how weird human entertainments are. But I really notice the difference the Yeerks have made in our physical well-being when they're not with us. Pedro's breathing gets worse. Timmy has a lot more involuntary movements. Not that he really cared about that right now.

"Thanks," Jia Jia told Cleyr, out of earshot of the Controllers. Given that Timmy can't talk much, Jia Jia violates the etiquette of speaking dæmon-to-dæmon, not dæmon-to-human, all the time. But she likes to do the polite thing when she can. "That Yeerk was _awful_. He kept playing back memories of my parents to make me miserable whenever I complained. It was like _A Clockwork Orange_ but with my own memories."

"Shit," Cleyr said. "I never thought of that. They can do psychological torture like _nobody's_ business. Are you sure you want to get a new Yeerk?"

"That Sub-Visser seemed pretty set on getting me a new one," Jia Jia said doubtfully. "And anyway, I'm fine with it as long as I get a _good_ one. Not twitching all the time was really nice. I want one like Judy's. She knows all these alien songs and stuff. Can you imagine? Alien music?"

"I'm sure Judy would lend you Garmiray for a while, if you want to hear some alien music," Cleyr said.

"Huh." I leaned back in my chair. "Swapping Yeerks. Now there's an idea. Julio said that his Yeerk knows Spanish now, from being in his brain. What would happen if I had Deseek in my head for a while? Could she teach me Spanish?"

Timmy made an approving noise, and Jia Jia said, "Whoa. We _have_ to try that." Then she started singing "If I Only Had a Brain" from _The Wizard of Oz._

When we'd loaded our Yeerks back into our brains, Sub-Visser Two-Twenty said, "I have an important announcement of my own to make. The true identities of the so-called Andalite bandits have been discovered. With one exception, they are not Andalites at all, but humans. Sam will distribute pictures and descriptions now."

Sam, the Controller nurse, passed out flyers. I looked down, numbly, at the one in my hands. Five of the seven bandits, who according to Velger were the scourge of the Yeerk invasion of Earth, were teenagers. Kids my age. One of the dæmons, Merlyse, hadn't even settled yet. The one adult had a kind, motherly face with unfocused eyes and scars dragging down one side, and a cute little striped deer dæmon. The last was an alien Velger had shown me with its thoughts before: an Andalite, the Yeerks' greatest enemies.

"They may seem like mere children," Sub-Visser Two-Twenty said, "but don't be fooled by appearances. The one named Marco López Chen and Diamanta is the son of Visser One's host. Jake Berenson and Merlyse lived in the same home with his brother, a Controller, for years without ever being detected. All of them are extremely dangerous. If you see any sign of them, call the emergency number I've given you, any time of day or night. Remember the hundred Yeerks they boiled to death at the teaching hospital. Remember the hundreds of Yeerks, hosts, and thousands of person-hours of scientific research they drowned in the base off Royan Island. Remember they destroyed the Kandrona and caused the mass famines of a year and a half ago. Remember they abducted forty Yeerks from the Pool, including twenty children. We are closer to apprehending them than ever, but we need every good Yeerk to stay alert."

Whispers broke out everywhere as soon as Mai and Sam left, but I couldn't join in. I just kept staring at the flyer. «Did they really do those things the Sub-Visser said?» I asked Velger.

«Yeah. They did. Even the Peace Movement can confirm that. We're not big fans of all the famines and massacres. Obviously.» Velger brooded for a moment, waves of pain as it thought about the Yeerks who'd died. «But things have changed. The abduction was actually us working with the Andalite – with the bandits. Those Yeerks went to a rogue Pool off-grid the Andalites – the bandits built. Wow. How did a bunch of humans build that?»

Taurim landed on Cleyr's head. "Hey, Cleyr. What's eating you? Thinking about how cool it would be to have the morphing power like those kids? 'Cause I sure am."

I looked to my right, and sure enough, Collette had rolled up. I shook the flyer at her. "This is not _cool_. These people aren't morphing for _fun_. Did you hear what Mai said? This kid, Jake, his brother was a Controller! And he probably didn't get one of the fun loser Yeerks they dumped on us cripple kids – no offense, Velger, Falsen, we like losers around here. And this one, Marco, his _mom_ got taken by the top general in this loony military the Yeerks have!" I realized I'd raised my voice, and all the kids on the ward were staring at me. I kept on going. Everyone needed to hear this. "These people are fighting to free their families, and everyone else caught up in what the Yeerks are doing – and we all _know_ it's bad, even if our Yeerks aren't. And what are we doing? We're just sitting here making alien buddies! These are kids our age, and they're _doing_ something! Why don't we?"

Pedro's Gila monster dæmon, Lunaciel, who was sitting outside his room to listen, said, "What can _we_ do? We don't have the morphing power."

Viradechtis, Kelly's dæmon, a salmon pink bird-eating tarantula, said, "Uh, hey. Margoth speaking. We're not totally powerless out here. The Yeerk Peace Movement deals in espionage. Information. And I know where one of the spymaster's dead drops for information is. Some of you have been there on trips before." Margoth spun out a thread of silk and spooled it out with the tip of a long leg. "We're not alone out here. We're part of a _network_."

 **Loren**

"Where should we look for Loren next?" said Shauna, the Sharing volunteer driving the van. Her harpy eagle dæmon was perched on the roof, his sharp eyes useless to pick out me, Ax, and Tobias, now that it was dark.

"We could go check out the School for the Blind," my old friend Sharon said. "She likes to go to the library there sometimes and pick up audiobooks."

"That's a good idea," said Shauna. "I don't think the search teams have checked around there yet. Let's go."

"I have to thank you again, Shauna," Giancarlo said from the second row of seats in the van. "When I first heard about Community for Every Body, I thought it would just be more lip service from people who don't really understand us. But the Sharing has really stepped up for our community when we need you most. And your programming has actually been accessible to folks with different disabilities."

"There must be twenty volunteers from the Sharing helping in the search for Loren." Sharon's voice choked up. "I'm… I'm just so grateful."

«Yeah, yeah, the Sharing's so great,» Tobias muttered. «Gag me with a spoon.»

We followed as Shauna drove through the neighborhood around the school for the blind, describing what she saw. Through the open window of the van, her eagle dæmon explained too. My friends pointed out places I used to go, that time the kids at the school had a concert and I went to the auditorium to listen.

When Shauna stopped at a gas station to fuel up, my friends got out of the van to stretch their legs. Nazneen, who couldn't have been older than twenty, leaned her forehead against Maxwell's shoulder and wept very quietly. Her capuchin monkey dæmon, Bhaanu, clung to her leg like a small child. "It's been more than twenty-four hours since Loren disappeared. What are the odds they're going to find her?"

"Hey," Maxwell said. "It hasn't even been a full two days. She'll get found."

My ex-boyfriend, Lenny, sidled up to Maxwell and Nazneen, his loris dæmon's eyes flashing back the harsh fluorescence of the gas station. "Hey," he said softly. "The Sharing's going to have a support session for community members affected by Loren's disappearance. Tomorrow afternoon at the community center. We can all talk it out."

«Oh, sweet Jesus,» I said. «They're rounding up people who think they might know something about me. Oh, _Lenny_. I'm so sorry they got to you.»

"Thanks, Lenny," Maxwell rumbled, "but I don't know how much of the community I can bear right now. I'm barely holding myself together."

"I gotcha, buddy," Lenny said. "Just let us know when you need our support, and we'll be there."

«Looks like Nazneen and Maxwell are the holdouts,» Tobias said. «They're all pushing those two on the Sharing pretty hard.»

«I have to warn them,» I muttered. «But Jake told me to ask you first. You think there's enough to go on? Can I be reasonably sure those two aren't Controllers?»

«I think using them as decoys is more elaborate a scheme than the Yeerks would attempt with _ve–_ with these visually impaired people.» Ax said.

«Okay. Okay. Let's do this.» I directed private thought-speech. «Nazneen. Maxwell. Don't move. Don't show any reaction to my voice unless I tell you to.»

Nazneen gasped. Maxwell went stiff. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. They were realistic enough reactions to grief and despair. I went on, «This is Loren speaking. Yes, I'm inside your heads. No, I can't explain how just yet. _Do not say anything_. If you make a sound, I'll fly away right now and you won't see me. I don't want that to happen. I need to talk to you. If you understand me, walk around to the other side of the van.»

They looked shaky and scared, but they did it. «Good. Maxwell, I need you to tell Shauna and the others that you're going to walk Nazneen home.»

I talked them through it, step by step, until I had them in a patch of woods just before the highway, where it was dark. That would keep us out of sight, and it wouldn't matter so much to Nazneen and Maxwell. I found a sapling to perch on, so I was near their height. «Bhaanu,» I said to the monkey dæmon. «Do you see me? The owl?»

Bhaanu, clinging to Nazneen's back, peeked cautiously over her shoulder. He gasped.

"What?" said Amirekh, Maxwell's Siberian salamander dæmon.

"There _is_ an owl," Bhaanu whispered, spooked. "Just staring at us."

«It's me,» I said. «I'm the owl. Both of you, put your hands on me. To your left, Maxwell. Forward. There.» They reached for me slowly, as if I really were a wild owl who might flee if they made any sudden moves. Nazneen's hand was on my wing, Maxwell's on my face. The owl mind didn't like it at all. «Don't be afraid. I'm going to turn from an owl back into myself. It's going to feel really weird. But it's going to be okay.» And I focused on the image of my own body.

Nazneen screamed and flinched away when she felt my feathers dissolve into skin. She held Bhaanu up against her chest so he could watch the rest of the morph, dim and less immediate in the darkness. Maxwell stayed firm, though, which didn't surprise me. Amirekh once told Jaxom that Siberian salamanders can stay frozen in the permafrost for years, thaw out, and walk away as if nothing had happened. Maxwell was the most unshakeable person I'd ever met. So when I was fully demorphed, standing barefoot in the dry leaf litter, Maxwell's hand was still on my face, his thumb on my cheekbone. "Loren," he said in his basso voice, steady but sad. "Where are your beautiful scars?"

Tears welled up and spilled over, wetting Maxwell's thumb. "The morphing technology – what I just used to turn into an owl and back – it's based on DNA. The car accident isn't written in my DNA. The first time I morphed, it put me back the way I was before the accident."

Maxwell's hand tightened on my face, a gentle pressure like a hug. "Your memories?"

"Yeah. Those too."

"How long has this been going on," Maxwell asked, but so quiet and resigned it barely sounded like a question at all.

"A year. I've been lying to you about still being blind. I'm so sorry. I _hated_ lying to you. I wish so much I didn't have to do that."

Tears kept trickling down my face, but Maxwell didn't move his hand away. "So that's why you've been seeing us less and less lately."

I sniffled. "Yeah. The less I saw you, the less I had to lie."

"How did you get this morphing technology?" Nazneen said, an edge of hysteria to her voice. "Why did you disappear? What's going on?"

"It all started when my son came and found me," I said. "I don't know if you remember – his name's Tobias – "

"Of _course_ we remember," Nazneen said. "You told us all about him. How you wished you could have taken care of him – how jealous you were of Maxwell and his kids – but you were so afraid of reaching out to him!"

"I must have told you a dozen times that you should have tried to make contact," Maxwell said. "But he reached out first. What a beautiful second chance for you."

I explained the war to them, as best I could. There was so much, it was hard to pick what to say. But most importantly, I got across the warning that the Sharing was trying to enslave them, and our friends in the support group had already been taken. "I can get you to safety," I said. "There's a place where the Yeerks can't touch you. That's where I'm living now. Tobias and my brother-in-law Ax are here with me now." I paused.

«Hi,» Tobias said.

"We can take you there," I went on. "Out of this whole mess."

"I can't leave my wife and kids," Maxwell said, resolute. "Thank you for the warning, but I'll stay."

"And what about all the other disabled people the Sharing is trying to recruit?" Nazneen demanded. "I can't just run away and let them get taken! We have to stay and warn them!"

Of course they wouldn't run away. I would have said the same thing in Nazneen's place. "Please, be careful. If you speak out against the Sharing too openly, they may round you up and infest you just to shut you up. I know you like press stories and campaigns, Nazneen, but you have to be more subtle than that this time. Promise me you won't put yourselves in danger, both of you."

"Aren't you putting yourself in danger?" Maxwell said.

"Of course. I'm taking a risk by talking to you."

"Then I won't promise. You've chosen to risk yourself to help others. Why can't I make the same choice?"

I ran my hand down my face. Another burden settled on my shoulders, making my bones ache with its weight. "You're right. I hate it, but you're right. You can make your own choices. But never forget how dangerous the Yeerks are." _Are we patronizing them, Jax?_ I wondered. _Are we just condescending to them the way sighted people used to condescend to us? Or does it really feel this way because we still care about them? I wish I could tell the difference._

"Are you happy?" Nazneen said suddenly, a strange brittleness in her voice. "That this morphing technology cured you?"

"I'm happy the morphing technology gave me the chance to fight," I said. "But I hated lying to all of you. I hated pretending to still be blind when I wasn't living that life anymore. I hated it so much. I'm so sorry."

"You weren't trying to deceive us. You were trying to help. And you're still looking out for us now," Nazneen said. "I won't let the Sharing take advantage of us anymore."

"Thank you for warning us," Maxwell said. "We'll do what we can to protect ourselves and our families, and you'll do what you can to protect yours. Treasure your second chance with your son, Loren. It's a rare gift."

I suddenly remembered that Tobias and Ax were right here with me, even if I couldn't see or hear them in the night. Tobias had heard all of this. Shame burned through me, so intense I felt as if God had smitten me where I stood. _Maybe He has,_ Jaxom thought, dizzy with self-awareness. _Maxwell is right. God gave us a second chance with Tobias, and we're throwing it away, and for what?_

 _Something a mother acting in the spirit of Christ would have forgiven him for in a heartbeat,_ I thought. Tears rushed down my face, but I refused to make a sound. Tobias didn't need me to wail and beat my chest. He needed me to be his mother again.

I morphed to owl again. Bhaanu watched me the whole time, though he trembled with fear. Maxwell didn't have his hand on me this time. When I was morphed, I said, «If you need to get a message to me, mail it to this address,» and I rattled off a P.O. box the Chee check once a week.

The whole flight back to the valley, I didn't say a word to Ax or Tobias. The guilt was too enormous to say anything to Tobias, and I had no idea what to say to Ax, who still clung to the anger that now scalded me too badly to hold. Instead, Jaxom and I prayed. _Misericordia, dæmon of our Blessed Lady, guide me through the darkness of my ignorance and confusion so I may find my way to your motherly love. God gave me a great gift when He gave me back my son, but without your wisdom I will squander this gift and let it come to naught._ Then we said so many Hail Marys I lost all count of them.

I think Misericordia must have been listening, because by the time we got back to the valley, I knew what I had to do. It would have to wait until tomorrow, though. «Thank you both so much for backing me up. I think that went about as well as it could have.»

They wished me goodnight. I was exhausted, but it took m hours to get to sleep. Partly it was because Walter Clark snores. But mostly it was because I felt as if I were haunted by the ghost of the woman I had once been, her dæmon's black eyes staring judgment at me for finding the lost secrets of her past and her family, and sacrificing it all at the altar of my own fear.

Breakfast for humans in Kref Magh is oatmeal served from a giant cauldron, with nuts and honey and dried fruit to put in it. There was even hot water and tea. As I ate and watched the group, parents rounding up children and the day's kitchen shift cleaning up bowls, I decided who to approach. _Julie makes sense,_ Jaxom said. _She said during that meeting with Toby that she's a social worker. That's like what we did at the crisis hotline._

I waited for my moment. Julie spent all of breakfast with her boyfriend Jamal, talking with him quietly, her jewel-bright snake dæmon coiled fetchingly around his dæmon's long pink neck. They looked quite peaceful.

The newly settled families of the other Animorphs were anything but. Naomi tried to get her family to eat together in peace, while Jordan asked Rachel a neverending stream of questions she didn't seem eager to answer, and Sara ran around the fire pit in circles, apparently more interested in playing with her rabbit dæmon than sitting down fro breakfast. Steve and Jean were overly solicitous toward Tom, who kept seeking out any way he could to show off his restored health – eventually he broke away from them and helped the kitchen shift wash dishes, just because he could. Marco argued with his stepmother in the kitchen while his father ate his oatmeal standing and tried to fade into the background. And Cassie was practically spoon-feeding oatmeal to her father, who was gray-faced and without appetite.

When I left my bowl and spoon in the kitchen and fetched some tea to sip by the fire, the breakfast rush had calmed, and Jamal was gone. I approached Julie with my mug of tea in front of my face like a shield. "Uh, hi Julie," I said. "I'm Loren." I gestured toward my dæmon. "Jaxom."

Julie raised her eyebrows. "I know who you are."

"Right. Of course. Yeah." I drank some tea while I gathered myself. "Can I speak with you in private? I… have some questions."

Julie's dæmon – I realized to my embarrassment that I didn't know his name – flicked his tongue at me. She said, "About what?"

I lowered my voice. "About Yeerks. I… want to learn. Things."

Julie's posture loosened. "All right then. Let's sit by the creek. Sun's coming out."

We sat on an old fallen tree trunk by the creek. "I'm sorry," Jaxom said to Julie's dæmon. "I don't know your name. Or – or the name of the Yeerk you had. Before."

"I'm Enther," the many-colored snake dæmon said. "And – my Yeerk was Efflit 812." He slithered down to Julie's knee and stretched out toward Jax. "Why are you asking me this? Gossip moves fast around here. Some of the new arrivals were there when Tobias told everyone about morphing Yeerk. I know how you reacted. Are you really ready to hear what I have to say about Yeerks?"

"I'm not," Jax admitted. "But I think I have to, if I want to be a sire to Elhariel and Tobias again."

Julie sucked on her teeth. "Huh. Okay. I think that's good enough for me, then." She gathered Enther up in her hands and wound him around her fingers like a cat's cradle. "I don't know what kind of experiences you've had with the Yeerk Empire. I'm guessing they ain't fond memories. But put those to the side for now and look at my situation from my perspective.

"Imagine you meet a guy at church. You start dating, nothing too serious. He's down on his luck when you meet, in and out of shelters, but he's sweet, and you don't hold none of it against him. But sometimes it seems like you're the only good thing in his life. And then he turns his life around. He's got a place to live, he's taking vocational classes, but most important, he's got friends and some self-respect. You're not just a life raft he's grabbing onto in a storm. Now you decide you really want to get to know him.

"You have a really nice date with him, and at the end he sits you down on a park bench, and he looks as serious as you've ever seen him. He says, I gotta tell you my truth. And he tells you the craziest damn story you ever heard, but he has the slug and the laser weapon to prove it. It's an alien that changed his life. Got right inside his head, knowing all kinds of things from people's heads it's been in before, and taught him how to get past all the fear and trauma and reach out to people again. Jamal's autistic. Had so many bad experiences trying to make friends as a kid he just kinda… gave up. But Essak wouldn't give up until Jamal could get it right this time.

"And all I could think was… that's the most amazing therapy tool I ever heard of. And I hate to say it, but the Yeerks are a good sight better at healthcare coverage than the United States government, and I have my epilepsy to think about. So I decided to sign up. And I never once regretted it. Efflit 812 had _been_ other people. Not just known them, but _lived their lives_. She showed me what it was like to be a teenager with attention problems. An overworked single mom. I could connect with my clients in a way I never could before. Jamal and I, he'd put Essak in my head, and I'd put Efflit in his, and when we put them back the way we were, we knew each other from the _inside out_. The closeness I felt to him… there's never going to be anything like that.

"So if you think what I did is wrong – tell that to the clients I helped who I'd never known how to help without Efflit. Tell that to Jamal, who used to live like an island all out by himself until Essak gave him the courage to try connecting again." She stared at me, defiant.

"Jamal shouldn't have needed a Yeerk for that," I said helplessly, knowing I was just grabbing at any excuse to justify myself. "There should have been _people_ there to help him."

Julie snorted. "Yeah. There should have. But there wasn't nobody wanted to help an autistic Black man who couldn't pay his rent half the time. Nobody except a brain slug from outer space."

"Thank you," I said. In the face of Julie's generosity, I felt petty and small. "I – I'll think about this. What you said."

"Think long and hard," Julie said. "If a mother can't forgive her own son for finding comfort with a Yeerk, I don't see how there's a chance in hell anyone would forgive Jamal or me."


	6. Chapter 6

**Cassie**

Rachel and I dragged away a couple of camp chairs and the second most prized object in Kref Magh, after the blue box: the French press coffee maker. It had just rained, and despite our best efforts to clear the water off the camp chairs, my butt was getting damp. Rachel sniffed at the coffee, to make sure it was brewed just right, then poured. It was fragrant and so strong it made my mouth tingle. We needed it. Between scouting for Hork-Bajir training facilities, tailing my mom, and looking after our families, we hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few days.

"I have a plan," I said.

Abineng came up behind Rachel's camp chair and stuck his head behind hers. She leaned back against his long face, giving him a noseful of coffee steam. "Oh, thank fuck. I was about to come up with something really stupid."

"You haven't even heard it."

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Come on. Your plans are always better than mine."

"I think you should morph Yeerk and infest me so we can get past the Gleet BioFilters on the Yeerk Pool entrances."

She choked on her coffee. " _Excuse_ me?"

"We've seen from following Mom that she has a tail of armed Controllers, like, constantly, because they know I want to get her back. The Yeerk Pool is the only place we can get to her without an armed escort. We could use that Yeerk Pool entrance that Eva and Aftran secured for us, but Jake would get _really_ mad if we burned that one. So… this is the best way to get in." I bit my lip. "Unless you're not okay with that. I'll think of something else."

Rachel looked down at her coffee, then back up at me. "And you're okay with having me in the driver's seat? I don't have a Yoort morph. I wouldn't have any brakes built in. I could just…"

"Rachel." Quincy flew over to hang from Abineng's horn. "You've infested Tobias, and he talked about it like it was a nice thing that helped you both. I trust you in my head."

She looked up at Quincy hanging from Abi's horn. "Oh. Well. If you're sure, then – " She smiled. "Let's bust your mom out of there."

I laughed. "Easy there, tiger. Mom's feeding time isn't until the evening. We still have to patrol for Hork-Bajir facilities out in the Dry Lands. And there's a morph you'll need to acquire first."

"What do I need besides Yeerk?"

"How do you think we're getting Mom out of there? We need some kind of threat her Yeerk will take seriously, but it has to be subtle enough that no one else in the Pool will notice." I finished my coffee and stood up. "Come on. I found a black widow's nest in an old gopher hole."

Rachel slugged her coffee and scrambled to her feet. "Hang on. We have to return the French press to the kitchen or every adult human in the valley will strangle us. Also, how are _you_ getting into the Yeerk Pool? They all know what we look like now!"

"I know I acquired it a long time ago," I said, though come to think of it, it had been less than two years, "but can I use your DNA again?" I remembered the time I used it without her permission and went all squirmy inside.

"You can't go in as me either."

"I know." I closed my eyes and pictured Rachel, imagining clearly the features I wanted to borrow: the point of her chin, her long limbs, her sleek hair. I felt the changes begin, and then I stopped. When I opened my eyes, I was of a height with Rachel, which was just weird.

Her mouth fell open. "Holy shit, Cassie, you look like Beyoncé from Destiny's Child. All you need is a fairy-wren dæmon!"

I shimmied around and moaned, "Say my name, say my name!"

Rachel shoved me. "Oh my God, Cassie, stop dancing, you look like you're being tortured to death."

"Ugh. There goes my career as the fifth member of Destiny's Child." I demorphed, and Quincy settled on my shoulder in a flurry of wings. "Fine, we'll return the French press first. But then it's spider time."

In the end, we decided to use the Pool entrance in the changing room at Nordstrom, because it gave Rachel a place to morph. The Nordstrom was staffed by Controllers, of course, so I talked her through the half-morph into me until she got it right. We put on mall-appropriate clothes, empty insect dæmon lanyards and walked into the Nordstrom looking like two members of Destiny's Child who were also sisters.

"I could actually pull off this top with this skin color," Rachel sighed over the pale pink cardigan she'd brought to the dressing room with her.

«Hurry up and morph!» I told Rachel silently, before demorphing myself to refresh the time limit. I kissed Quincy, once, then morphed into not-Beyoncé again. I looked down at the cheap wristwatch in Rachel's discarded clothing. The clock was ticking. I scooped Rachel up from the floor before she could dry out too badly, took a deep breath, and pressed her to my ear.

I'd never done this before with anyone but Aftran. Jake was right. It was different doing this with Rachel than with an alien. Aftran had had no context for what she saw in my mind, no preconceptions. Rachel, though, had been my friend for nearly ten years, and she was about to get a picture of me that might be completely different from the girl she thought she knew.

I disconnected from my body, frozen to the spot, but only for a minute. When I had control back, I started up a breathing pattern, just to establish that I could. «How are you doing?» Quincy said.

«Good,» said Abineng, a little dreamily. «It's very… peaceful in here.»

«You're really smart,» Rachel said. «I mean, I already knew that. But you think about a lot of things at once. Feel a lot of things at once too. No wonder you can open yourself up to… never mind. I'm fine. Let's do this.»

I was kind of curious about what she'd been about to say, but we were on a schedule here. «Keep it to surface thoughts and taking over in case of an emergency, and we're good,» I agreed, and I started the walk down to the Yeerk Pool.

Mom was in a cage, as we knew she would be. It was getting to the end of feeding time. Mom's Yeerk was a Sub-Visser, we'd learned from watching her. After she was reinfested, she would have business in the Yeerk Pool. That would be our chance to corner her. I went to the voluntary area and had a chamomile tea to calm my nerves while I watched the reinfestation pier out of the corner of my eye.

A Hork-Bajir-Controller led her along by the crook of her arm. She was solemn, stoic, her degu dæmon huddled in the curve of her neck.

«Look fast, two o'clock!» Rachel said, turning my head so I could see better. A voluntary was approaching me. A teenager a couple years older than me, wearing a lanyard for an insect dæmon just like mine.

She smiled. "Hey. I haven't seen you around here."

«I'm a terrible liar, use my brain to come up with some bullshit!» I yammered at Rachel.

"New feeding schedule," Rachel said curtly. "Pain in the ass. Gotta get in and get out before dinner with the folks." She slugged back the rest of the tea and walked away.

«Oh my God thank you,» I thought in a rush. I caught sight of my mom, reinfested now, heading toward the office space of the Pool. «Can you just… stay in the driver's seat? We've got to follow her and act casual, and I just _cannot_ right now.»

«Sure.» My face relaxed into vague boredom. My hands went in my pockets, and I followed Mom at a distance with a casual slouch. I had no idea how Rachel did this, and she was doing it with my own body. Then again, I'd seen Rachel act completely indifferent in front of a salesman about a pair of shoes I knew for a fact she would strangle him to get her hands on.

Mom went into an office with the nameplate "Sub-Visser 198." «That's her!» I thought. «Now's our chance.»

«Can you handle this, Cassie?» Rachel said, seriously. «I can do the talking. Just say the word.» I pictured what I wanted to do, for Rachel's benefit. «Oh, yeah, I definitely can't do that. But if you need me, Cassie, I'm taking over. This isn't my mom. If you need to – »

«I know. If it comes to that, you should do it.» I very carefully didn't even think what I meant by that.

I opened the office door, shut it behind me, locked it, demorphed, pictured the way my arms moved differently when bearing the weight of Jara Hamee's blades. I had a wrist blade at my mother's throat before she could even scream. "Don't move," I told Sub-Visser One-Ninety-Eight. "Don't make a sound."

Dashiell's whiskers quivered with fear. My mother's beautiful dark eyes danced all over my face like she was looking for an exit strategy in there. "She's your mother," the Sub-Visser whispered. "You won't hurt her."

"My mother lived with a daughter who was fighting a secret guerrilla war against an alien empire, and she never had the slightest inkling," I hissed at the Yeerk through my teeth. I was dimly aware of Quincy's mouth opening, showing his glistening fangs. "You can't even guess what I'm capable of." I let out a long breath to steady myself. "And besides. Even if you did scream for help. You saw how fast I can morph. You'll have no way to prove Cassie was ever here."

The Sub-Visser licked her lips. Letting her nervous gestures spill over onto her host. Sloppy. "There are a few Hork-Bajir specialists now. They can detect morphs. One of them can even tell if you're infested or not. I could get one of them in here. They would find you out."

"How do you think I got past the Gleet BioFilter?" I said. "I _am_ infested."

The Sub-Visser stared at me. She swallowed, and I felt Mom's throat move against my blade. "One of the Yeerks you kidnapped?"

"Rescued," I corrected. "And no, though the thought did cross my mind. It's Rachel. In morph." And I gave the Yeerk a moment to consider what that meant.

«Are you sure it's a good idea to tell her all of this?» Rachel said, but Mom's eyes were very wide, staring into me like she was trying to see right through me to the Yeerk inside.

"So here's what's going to happen," I said, as calmly as I could manage. "Rachel is going to morph black widow spider and ride along with you. You'll come walk with me out of the Pool like everything is normal. If you make a wrong move, she bites you. Not holding back any venom, like a real black widow would do. The whole venom sac, all at once. Check my mother's brain, she knows exactly what that would do."

"And then you starve me to death," the Sub-Visser said bitterly.

"I really hope it doesn't come to that," I said softly. "We didn't kill those Yeerks we rescued from the Pool. Why would we go to all the trouble of getting them out, just to kill them? They're alive and well. There is mercy for Yeerks from the Guardians of the Galaxy."

My arm was aching with the tension of holding the blade in place. Mom and I stared at each other. Quincy and Dashiell stared at each other. The only sound was the ventilation, circulating air through the underground space.

I had imagined this moment over and over, when I'd planned this stupid little rescue mission. I'd imagined how it could go well, how it could end in blood and unending heartbreak, how it could end in worse than death. But I'd never imagined what the Yeerk did next.

She crawled out of my mother's ear. With a slow, shaking hand, Mom gently cupped the Yeerk, then picked up a mug and filled it with warm water from the water cooler in her office. She eased the Yeerk into the mug and set it down on the desk.

Then she flung her arms around me and squeezed me to her chest. I morphed away my blades and cried silently against the hollow of her throat, which I'd almost cut open moments before.

It couldn't last long. I sniffed and pulled away, just a little. The warmth was back in Dashiell's black eyes, where it should be. "How did you do that? Get her to just leave your head?"

Mom reached out and touched two fingertips to the edge of the mug. "She knows I would never hurt her."

"I would have hurt her," I whispered. "I would have hurt you."

"If you had to," Mom agreed. "But you were trying not to."

"Mom, listen, I was serious about not hurting her," I said. "There's this thing called the Yeerk Peace Movement – "

"I've heard. Edriss knows about it."

I blinked. "She's an Edriss?"

"Same spawning as Visser One, yes," Mom said. "We've been talking. She likes to talk. As soon as I heard about the Peace Movement in the cages I thought I might, you know, try."

I broke out in a grin. "Of course you did."

"What you just said to her – about having Rachel as a Yeerk in your head, about having mercy for Yeerks. Well, you know how it is with a Yeerk in your head. It had a huge effect on her. I could feel it. It was like her world rearranged itself." Mom gripped my shoulders. "Cassie. She's not Peace Movement. Not yet. But I think she could be. If you give me more time with her."

I shook my head. "No. Mom, there's no time. I don't know if I'll get another chance to sneak down here safely. I have to get you out of here, now."

"No, you don't. I don't know where you're hiding your father, but wherever it is, I'm sure I can do more here with Edriss 907 than there. She's a Sub-Visser. If the Peace Movement got someone this high up – think what she could do!"

I wanted to tell her the Peace Movement already had Visser One. But I couldn't. And Mom was right, anyway. A Sub-Visser could do a lot for the cause, especially with all of my mom's knowledge. "You could get _killed_ ," I said. "Or reassigned to a Yeerk who tortures you every minute of every hour."

"So could you. I've thought about that every moment since I found out what you've been doing on all those 'sleepovers with Rachel.'" Mom kissed me on the forehead. "I'm asking you to believe in me. Believe that I can do something here to make a difference." A tear ran down her cheek. "I believe in you, Cassie, my little bat. I was so scared when I found out what you're doing. But I know you can win, because I believe in you."

I pressed Mom's hand to my cheek and closed my eyes. "What do I tell Dad?"

"The truth," Mom said. "You've had to lie to us far too long. That's over now. Tell him my choice, and that I love him."

I opened my eyes. Dashiell was on the desk. Quincy flew over and nuzzled him. "If you want to get a message to the Peace Movement, leave it under the loose floorboard in that old antique shop where you got that lamp in the study. And Edriss 907, if you're going back over this memory later, don't bother to try and use it to take down the Peace Movement. I'll tell my contacts that the location is potentially compromised as soon as I'm out of here."

Mom pressed her forehead to mine. "Cassie, I am so sorry you've had to fight this war alone. I'm so sorry you couldn't trust me. But you don't have to do this alone anymore. You can trust me now. I'm going to fight for you every single day. Now go. Sub-Visser One-Ninety-Eight has paperwork to do."

"I want to be here when… I just need to talk to her one more time."

Mom gave me a quick kiss on the lips. Dashiell pulled away from Quincy, who flew back to my hand. Mom took Edriss 907 out of the mug and returned her to her ear. She froze up for a moment. But only for a moment. Very calmly, Edriss took a tissue out of a desk drawer and dabbed away the tears I'd left on Mom's neck. "You could have killed me," she said. "When I was in that mug."

«I definitely thought about it,» Rachel commented. «Like, a lot.» I'd almost forgotten she was there. I burned with embarrassment. «You have absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about. Your mom is amazing and so are you.»

"My mom said she would never hurt you. So I won't either." I grew blades again, not just wrist blades, but at head and knees and elbows. "Don't make me change my mind." And I morphed them away, and did the partway morph between me and Rachel. I left the office.

«Take over,» I told Rachel. «Please please please take over.»

«I can do better than that,» Rachel said, and when she took over my body for me, she pulled up a memory, with the full surround detail that only a Yeerk can do with a human brain. The smell of my mother, warm and close. A kiss to my forehead. The words, _I believe in you, Cassie, my little bat._

Rachel and I flew back to the valley in owl morph and traded stories about our parents, me about my mom, Rachel about Dan. I told her about how Mom gave me the Talk using "illustrative examples" from five different species, and she told me about Dan's incredibly awkward confession that he and Naomi were divorcing because he was gay.

«He had such a hard time getting it out,» Rachel said, «that I was like, "Do you mean you're gay?" and Gheselle finally unrolled from the tiny ball she'd curled up into, and Dad was like, "Yes! Thank God you know what that means. Do you mind helping me explain to your sisters?"»

I let Rachel go to bed, and promised her I'd get some sleep, too. But not yet. She'd been with me through a trial by fire, and I would never forget that. But there was only one person in the valley who suffered the way I was now suffering.

He wasn't in his bunk in the yurt. I flew around the valley, trusting my owl eyes to pick him out. I found him not too far from the human settlement, at the roots of a spreading Douglas fir, with Ax in human morph. They passed a bottle of a neon yellow liquid back and forth.

"Do it again!" Marco hooted. He took a sip from the bottle and handed it to Ax.

"Peter Piper picker pecker picker – " Ax stuck out his tongue. "No, that is not right." He drank from the bottle and brightened. "But it is fun to say. Peeeeeee-ter. Pie-pie-piper. Peter Piper pickles peckers?"

Marco giggled helplessly against the tree. Dia rolled around in the fallen pine needles and shook her rattle like it was a maraca.

I perched on a tree branch over them. «Where did you get alcohol?»

Marco swiped the bottle back. "Come on, Ax! We gotta hide! There's a _responsible adult_ here!"

I would have rolled my eyes if I were human. «I'm not gonna tell on you. But seriously, how? I doubt a Chee would bring it in for you.»

"Nooo, nutritious foods and medical supplies get priority," Marco drawled. "I bribed Rachel. Bald eagle's big enough to carry it. Nora wasn't done moving out of her house. She still had some liquor back there. I told her where the limoncello was and said she'd get half if she brought it here. She has the rest in a jar under her bunk." He lifted the bottle and waggled it. "Want in? We could get Ax to hold his tongue while he says 'I was born on a pirate ship.'"

"Will I have to shiver my timbers?" Ax said. "I have not yet figured out what that entails. Tay-uls. Is a timber a human body part?"

«Actually, I was hoping to talk to you in private, Marco.»

"Oooohh," Marco told Diamanta. "Cassie has some _serious stuff_."

"You may go," Ax said. "I will practice the tongue twisters. Betty botter bitter butter. No. Betty bought a bitter batter."

«Uh, are you still keeping track of your morph time all right, Ax?»

"Forty seven of your minutes remain," Ax said distractedly, clearly more concerned with how to pronounce his tongue twisters. "Betty. Bought. A bit. Of butter."

Marco struggled to his feet, slinging Diamanta like a spare rope over his shoulder, and winked at Ax. "I'm sure you'll be an expert by the time I get back."

I guided Marco to a fallen log nearby and demorphed. He sat next to me with his bottle of limoncello. I considered asking him to morph himself sober. _No, maybe he'd be better off drunk for this,_ Quincy thought. _Maybe he'll actually let himself feel something._

"So," I said. "I just got back from the Yeerk Pool. I tried to rescue my mom."

Marco choked on nothing. "Oh my _God_ , Cassie! Jake is going to be _so pissed_!"

"Don't tell Jake," I begged. "I didn't blow the mission. He doesn't need to know."

"So why are you telling _me_?"

"You may have noticed my mom isn't here," I said. "There's a reason for that." And I explained what had just happened in Sub-Visser One-Ninety-Eight's office.

"Moms are like that, huh," Marco said, a little dazed.

"I resented you when you said goodbye to Eva," I blurted out. "You acted like she was marching into a torture chamber. I thought it was because you didn't trust Aftran with her. But now I know it wasn't about that at all. We got into this war to protect our families. And now we have to let go of that. We can't protect our moms anymore. You were the only one who understood what it was like, to give that up. Now I do too. I'm so sorry, Marco." Quincy crawled inside my morphing leotard, overcome by shame and grief. I pressed my hand to the tiny lump he made over my heart. "It feels like every dream I had about my life after the war is falling apart. And it hurts _so much_."

I crumpled into Marco, on the side where Diamanta wasn't draped over his shoulder. I cried with the force of my whole body, shaking against him. For a moment, he stiffened. Then he laid a hand on the back of my head, so lightly it barely flattened my afro, and turned his head so his cheek touched my forehead. I remembered the look on Marco's face when he said goodbye to Eva, and fresh pain wracked me. Our mothers had made their choices, and we had to live with them. Live without them. Let them go.

Something hot and wet trickled down my forehead. Marco was crying too, here in the night when my face was hidden and no one but Diamanta would see.

My tears ran out, leaving me gasping for breath. I sat up and inhaled as deep as I could. Quincy crawled back out from under my leotard. "I dunno if this'll help you," Marco said, in a slow voice that reminded me he was drunk. "But sometimes when I get stuck imagining my mom dying a million awful ways, I think about the monument I'll get built in her memory when we win. We'll be famous, right? We could really do it up. I figure I'll replace the Washington Monument with an even bigger one. The Eva López Memorial. She always hated that stupid thing anyway. I'd build something way better."

I laughed, thick and watery. "My mom hates George Washington. Her dad is descended from one of his slaves."

"Awesome. We'll add her to the monument too. The Michelle Clark and Eva López Memorial. That'll get all their panties in a twist on Capitol Hill." We shared a slightly hysterical giggle. Marco held out the bottle of limoncello to me. "Want some?"

I stared at it. "Oh, hell with it." I took a long swig. "Huh. That tastes way better than the red wine my parents drink sometimes." I smiled at him and kissed him on the cheek. I tasted a hint of salt from where he'd cried on me. "You're sweet."

Marco went brick red. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, a thought-speech voice shouted, «Cassie! Marco! How _could_ you!»

In a moment, we were both on our feet. I morphed owl eyes. Nothing obvious – but then I saw the big brown bat hanging from a branch overhead. A big brown bat I'd helped Tom acquire yesterday from a day roost in a dead hollow tree. "Are you _spying_ on us?" I cried. "How long have you _been_ here!"

"Is that Tom?" Marco demanded. Coarse black hair covered his arms. "Sneaking up on people is an extreme sport around here, dude. What the fuck?"

«I was hanging out with Ax and I heard some noises coming from over here,» Tom said. «I came to check it out, and it's a good thing I did, because you two were _laughing_ and _drinking_ and _kissing_. I thought you were with Jake, Cassie. And Marco! How could you do that to him? I should go tell him right now.»

"I kissed him on the _cheek_!" I half-screamed. "If you wake up Jake over this, I swear to God – "

«He's awake,» Tom said. «If you're so sure it's no big deal, let's see what he thinks.»

Marco threw his hands up in the air. "Is there anyone _asleep_ in this valley in the middle of the night? Can't a guy drink in peace around here without someone getting all _responsible_ on him every five minutes?"

Ax came crashing in through the underbrush, still in human morph, still drunk. "Marco! Listen! She sells seashells by the seashore!"

"Hey," Marco said. "You got it. Great job, Ax."

"Fine," I said. "Let's go talk to Jake. He'll probably want to hear all about how you've been spying on us, Tom."

"He's like our dad," Marco sniggered. Right. He was drunk too.

"Spying?" Ax said. "Spy? Ying?"

Jake was not happy.

"One at a time, please," he ground out, as Merlyse paced and lashed her snow leopard tail. "Tom, go ahead."

"Your girlfriend is cheating on you with Marco," Tom said in a rush. "And drinking."

"I kissed him on the cheek!" I said, for what felt like the twentieth time.

"And the Hork-Bajir don't have underage drinking laws," Marco added. "Also you're not my dad."

"First of all, Cassie's not my – she's – " He shot me a frantic look and flushed pink. "Look, Tom, it's none of your business, but she can kiss Marco on the cheek if she wants to! Second of all, how do you even know what they were doing?"

"Because he was spying on us in bat morph," Marco drawled. "Seriously, dude, what the hell."

"I followed them in bat morph because I thought something was going on," Tom said.

Jake sighed. "And when you saw they were just hanging out and drinking, you didn't immediately turn around and leave them alone?"

"I was trying to help you," Tom argued. "I thought you would want to know what they were doing."

"You know what helps me? Spying on the _Yeerks_. Not on the Animorphs," Jake snapped. Merlyse got up in Delareyne's face, her legs bunched like she might tackle her to the ground at any moment. "Tom, I'm going to need you to stop morphing except when Toby or I tell you to do it for a mission. Morphing is a weapon. We don't turn weapons on our friends."

Tom pulled Delareyne against his side and hunched his shoulders. "Fine. Missions only. Got it." And he sloped away.

"I'm sorry, Jake," I said helplessly.

Jake turned to me and Marco. Merlyse became a little white snow bunting and perched on his shoulder. "I really don't care if you were drinking. Seriously. If it helped you unwind a little… maybe that's a good thing."

Marco raised his eyebrows and held up the bottle. "Are you saying you want some, Fearless Leader?"

He shook his head. "Nah. I should try to get some sleep."

My tongue tied itself in a knot. The words hovered in the air: _Cassie's not my – Cassie can kiss Marco on the cheek if she wants to._ I should say something about that. Or about the stupid mission I'd just run behind his back. But I just couldn't right now. So instead I told Marco, "Save it for another night. Then all three of us can pass it around."

"Ooh, Cassie, repeat offender," Marco said. "Who would have thought? And dragging Jake into her wicked ways too!"

 _It's the only way we'll talk about the things we really need to talk about,_ Quincy thought. I smiled weakly. "Yeah. That's me. A wicked, wicked temptress." And I walked back to the yurt, feeling like I'd missed out on a chance to come clean.


	7. Chapter 7

**Rachel**

Ax was off on a sweep of the mountains with Loren, still on the hunt for wherever the Yeerks were training up Hork-Bajir-Controllers. I managed to sneak off before Jake could assign me yet another patrol, and took my chance to hit up Ax's scoop, with its sweet sweet cable and Internet connection.

On my flight out from the valley, Abi and I thought about what it was like to infest Cassie. It was hard not to think about it. She had this deep well of patience and focus inside her that was easy to notice because of how much I didn't have it. Tobias has something like that too. _Maybe everyone has it except for us,_ Abi thought, _and that's why we can't stop doing all the reckless bullshit our brain comes up with. They can just toss all that stuff in the well._

The other thing I couldn't stop thinking about – except, of course, my mom in Michelle's place, on a nice endless loop in my nightmares – was the way Cassie thought about Sub-Visser One-Ninety-Eight. She didn't think, _What is this slug going to do to my mom's brain,_ or _What does it do with the hands that held me._ She thought, _Is she a good person,_ and _Can I trust her with someone I love?_

I've _been_ a Yeerk half a dozen times now, and I still have a hard time thinking about them that way. Like they're just people who happen to be brain parasites.

It's hard to spot the scoop from above, with its woven vine roof, even if you're an eagle. But I'd been there enough times to meet up with Tobias that I could pick it out. Abineng had to duck his head so his horns wouldn't destroy the entrance. Then he folded his legs and chilled out on the ground so there was no chance he'd tear up the roof.

I logged on the Internet first. Ax's connection is better than any I've used – you don't have to sit there for a whole minute listening to the dial-up. Then I went to the website of the network my dad worked for. He wasn't on the list of reporters anymore. I went to his old network in California and looked for his name. There was a small item on the website welcoming back Dan Berenson to their team.

I logged off the computer, sat cross-legged with my back against Abi's flank, and turned on the TV.

He wasn't on right away. I had to sit through a feature about the rise of identity theft first. Ha. Try losing your credit score, your bank account, _and_ all control of your body to an alien. Then there was some more crap about Monica Lewinsky, like I cared about who did or didn't suck the president's dick. And then – it was him.

He had Gheselle on a high stool next to him, like he always did during broadcasts – "if I'm sitting at his feet, no one will be able to see me, and that's just creepy," as Ghes liked to put it. And he was doing a fucking puff piece on the Sharing. On "Community for Every Body," the program that was infesting Loren's blind friends.

"Half of all disabled people in Santa Barbara live below the poverty line," Dad said. "They need support to help them navigate the bureaucracy and get the benefits they need. They need vocational classes and career counseling. The Sharing is on the case."

"He's a Controller," Abi said. "They're using him as bait. They want you to track him down and attack him."

I ground my teeth. "It's working."

There were footsteps outside the scoop – Andalite footsteps. I turned off the TV. "It's me," I shouted, before Ax started freaking out about an intruder in his scoop.

He came in with his tail blade high, but not ready-to-behead-someone high. He looked tired, and some other emotion I couldn't read, though Tobias would have been able to. «Ah. There you are. Prince Jake wishes to speak with you. Loren and I have found a Hork-Bajir training facility. We must investigate it more deeply.» His stalk eyes lingered on me a little longer than usual in their constant sweep of the scoop. «What are you doing here?»

"Watching TV," I said. "I needed a break."

«I would prefer if you asked me for permission first,» Ax said stiffly.

"You know, I could have done that," I said, "but you're on my shit list right now, so I decided I didn't care."

If Ax got any stiffer, he was going to fall over like a plank of wood. «What is a 'shit list'?»

"It's the list I put you on when my boyfriend loves you and you decide your friendship isn't worth a flying fuck to you anymore."

«What do you know of our friendship?» Ax said coldly. «It means a great deal to me, or else his behavior would not cause me such concern.»

"I know a lot about it, actually, since I've been inside his head," I shot back. His flinch when I said that was so satisfying. I needed to make him do it again. "You and Loren completely turned his world around, you know. You finally made him feel like he was worth something. He never had a family, and you gave him one. And now you've tossed him aside like garbage, and for what? For doing something I asked him to do that doesn't actually hurt anybody!"

«And what does _your_ mother think?» Ax said.

I spluttered. " _Excuse_ me?"

«You speak of my family. What of yours? What does your mother think of the way you and Tobias have _infested_ each other?»

" _Fuck_ you, Ax, you don't know _shit_ about my mom, how _dare_ you bring her into this!"

«So you have not told your mother,» Ax said. «Why not, if this is a normal courtship behavior you are not ashamed of? If you believe this is an appropriate way to treat your beloved, and you lack the courage to tell your mother yourself, perhaps I should do so. It is important to keep one's parents informed of major changes in relationship status.»

"Oh, so I guess you've told your mom about all your family's 'major changes in relationship status,'" I shouted. Abineng and I got to our feet, making the space much smaller with Abi's full bulk. "Nabbed yourself another Z-space transponder, huh? Broke into the observatory again? 'Hi, Mom, your big hero son fled the war and got it on with a primitive human. I know, gross, right? So anyway, now I have a secret nephew who I treat like shit every time he does something that freaks me out a little bit.'"

«Of course I would tell my parents if I could! I am not ashamed of Elfangor or Tobias!»

" _I cannot believe the words that are coming out of your brain_ ," I screamed. Beside me, Abineng snorted and gouged at the ground with his hoof. "Of _course_ you're ashamed of Tobias! You treat him like a big Yeerk-shaped turd in your grass!" My hand tightened in Abineng's mane. I could feel anger radiating off him like heat, like a furnace about to explode. Ax swept his tail up in a position that meant he was preparing for a fight.

 _I wish Tobias were infesting us right now,_ Abi thought. _He'd tell me – he'd make it stop – he'd –_

"You know what," I said suddenly. "Tobias taught me better than this. When he was inside my brain. Being a Yeerk." And I grabbed Abi by the neck and half-dragged him out of Ax's scoop.

"Let's find Cassie," I told Abi, focusing on the bald eagle inside me. "We need to rescue Dad."

 **Fei Chiang and Sui Mu**

 **Infested by Niss 79 in May '98**

Usually, our reporters aren't the ones who get interviewed. Then again, our reporters usually aren't directly affected by a top news story.

And, of course, it was awfully convenient for my alien overlords if Dan Berenson made an emotional plea on the local news for people to come forward with any information they might have about his missing family: ex-wife, daughters, brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Which was why it was my and Niss's job to produce and edit the segment for maximum impact.

As the Sharing's plant in the local news, I've had to do a lot of things I wish I hadn't. But watching Essa 283 tear up and talk about how much he missed his daughter Rachel made me want to shower for the rest of the day. Maybe even the week.

«It's not going to work anyway,» Niss pointed out. «Those kids have been hiding themselves and whoever else they want for ages now. Do they think Jane Doe watching this show is going to stumble on their secret hideout? This isn't one of those Batman cartoons Mary used to watch.»

Dan cradled his cat dæmon to his chest. "My ex-wife Naomi is an amazing woman, and a great mother to our children. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to her."

Essa 283 was right about that. After the practice when Mary sprained her ankle on the dismount from the balance beam, Naomi gave me the number of the doctor who'd treated Rachel when she'd had the same injury, and called me later to check how the ankle was healing. I hadn't gone to the doctor Naomi recommended, though. I'd gone to the doctor with no co-pays covered by my health care plan as a full member of the Sharing, and that goddamn traitor infested my daughter without consulting me and Niss first. I'd told her about Niss, but when she asked if she could have a Yeerk, I told her she was too young, and maybe when she was older I'd find a Peace Movement partner for her. But I'd waited too long, the decision had been made for me, and Mary was a slave to a petty tyrant of a Yeerk.

"Do you think the disappearance of your family might be connected to the other ongoing missing persons cases in Santa Barbara?" said the host interviewing Dan.

"I don't know, Remy. I just don't know. It could be – "

The wall of the studio imploded. I screamed, dropped to the floor, and curled up in a ball around the lanyard hanging from my neck. There was a trumpeting sound that made the air shake and lash against my body. It was a good thing that I'd kept Sui Mu in his case on my lanyard today. The elephant's trumpet alone would have flung him too far away from me. This was no situation for an Indian jumping ant dæmon.

«The children,» Niss said. «This has to be Rachel coming for her father.»

«Oh no,» Sui Mu moaned. «Does she know about his escort?»

All around me there was screaming and stomping and the smell of crumbled Sheetrock. I scrambled to my feet. There was a dark stain on my dress. «Some broken glass nicked you, but I'm numbing the pain,» Niss explained. «It's not so bad.»

«Mary picked out this dress for me,» I said numbly. «She said it shows off my shoulders.» I still wore it any chance I could, though her workaholic Yeerk, Carger 1929, couldn't care less what I wore. Now it was ruined.

There were downed lights and cameras everywhere, though some of them were still rolling. _That'll cost the studio thousands,_ I thought distantly. There was so much dust in the air from the pulverized walls that everything was both far away and right in front of my face, like a nightmare I only half-remembered but still gave me the shivers when I woke. An elephant and a moose rampaged through the studio, flattening the set, crunching bones, taking gunfire from Essa's armed escort – they didn't dare use Dracon beams while the cameras were on. One of the cameramen, who wasn't a Controller and had no idea what was going on, lay on the ground near me, his eyes dazed and uneven from a concussion.

«You can't hide forever, you piece of shit Yeerk!»

I trembled. I knew that voice. It was Rachel. She had done this. It was so hard to reconcile with the tall beautiful girl who'd spun around the uneven bars with Mary.

«Wouldn't you do the same to save Mary from Carger 1929?» Sui Mu said. «If you could?»

The dust was starting to settle. The elephant's left ear was lying on the ground, oozing blood. She was covered in burns and gashes, but she didn't seem to care. She was tossing around wrecked equipment, destroying cover, looking for wherever Essa 283 had hidden, while the moose held off all comers with its tree-trunk legs. In my head, Niss counted. Three of Essa's escort fighting the moose. Two on the ground, their bodies shattered by the terrible force of the two animals. «There are six in Essa's escort,» she said. «I don't see Estril. The sharpshooter.» She started searching the studio for her. I let her. I couldn't think of anything else to do.

«Aha!» Rachel cried, hoisting her father and his cat dæmon over her head with her trunk while Essa struggled uselessly in her grip. «Gotcha!»

Niss found Estril. A shock of fear froze me to the spot at the sight of her. She was taking cover behind one of the white sheets we use to diffuse the studio lights. She was well known to be a crack shot, especially with this host body, Wunmi, who had an eagle dæmon's eyes to peer through the scope. She aimed her rifle at Rachel's eye. It would go straight through to her brain.

«No,» Niss whispered in my mind. «No, don't do it, Fei, please – »

She could have stopped me. She was a Yeerk, and I was her host. It would have been easy. But she let me make my choice, even though it sealed her fate as well as mine. "Rachel!" I cried. "On your right! Look out!" And I flung myself against Estril.

I'm not a powerful gymnast like my daughter. I'm five foot nothing and weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. I had no chance of doing broad, tough Wunmi any harm. But I distracted her, and warned Rachel, and that was enough. Rachel and her companion started to beat a retreat. Estril screamed and shoved me away. "Traitor! Andalite-loving scum!"

It is a terrible thing to look down the barrel of a rifle that's about to fire on you. I would have died paralyzed and silent if it hadn't been for Niss. She fought against my body's freeze response and shouted, "Rachel! Mary Chiang! Please, please, you have to help her!"

«I don't know if she heard that,» Niss said. «Fei, my dearest Fei. I am so sorry I couldn't save Mary. Maybe Rachel can.»

«It's not your fault, Niss,» Sui Mu said. «Thank you for everything. I – »

Estril gave a primal cry of rage, and fired.

It was a terrible thing that I'd kept Sui Mu in his case on my lanyard today. I would have liked to hold him one last time –

 **Rachel**

We ran full tilt through the streets, counting on the crowds to keep the Controllers from spraying us with gunfire. Gheselle was clawing and biting at my trunk, but I ignored it. It was like a gnat bite compared to the line of liquid fire where my left ear was supposed to be. «Where do we go?» I shouted at Cassie.

«Get to cover!» she cried. «There's some woods at Stevens Park!»

A moose and an elephant can really book it. We crashed into the park at full speed, scattering picnickers everywhere. Once we got under trees, Cassie demorphed at warp speed. "Can you lower him? I can't reach."

"Put me down!" Dad – or the Yeerk pretending to be Dad – screamed. "I don't know what you are or why you're doing this, but please don't hurt me!"

I lowered him, though not enough that he could come close to touching the ground. Cassie reached up and touched his neck, then did this really cool thing where she morphed _upward_ , toward her hand. Her body crumpled and hardened and shrank from her feet up to her hand. I couldn't really see much more than that with elephant eyes, but I knew what she'd morphed.

«I'm going to need you to cooperate, or I'm going to have to bite you on the neck,» Cassie said calmly.

"I don't know what you're talking about!"

«Do you think I'm making empty threats? Don't test me, Yeerk.»

The Yeerk dropped the ruse. "You are making empty threats! I'm her father! You won't kill me!"

«I'm a black widow, not a coral snake,» Cassie explained patiently. «My bite won't kill you if I don't want it to. It'll just make you swell up and hurt like hell. I think Dan can handle a few days of pain and limited movement in exchange for his freedom.» The Yeerk went slack in my grip. «Okay. Very good. Now, Rachel, put him down and demorph before someone figures out what to do about the elephant in Stevens Park.»

I put him down and demorphed. Then I went to wolf, so any passersby would mistake me for a dog, but I could still stop the Yeerk if I needed to. The Yeerk's eyes went wide when he saw my human form, with Abi standing tall and proud beside me. I ignored him. «All right,» I told Cassie. «Let's starve this motherfucker.»

«There's no need for that,» Cassie said. «Not if our Yeerk friend here behaves. What's your name?»

"Essa 283," the Yeerk said. In his arms, Gheselle bared her teeth and yowled. I'd never seen her do anything like that before. Even during my parents' divorce when they were yelling at each other every night, she never went in for anything harsher than a rumbly growl.

«What have you heard about the forty Yeerks we rescued from your Pool?» Cassie said.

"You kidnapped them," Essa 283 said. "Probably tortured them for information."

«And why would we do that? Those forty Yeerks were twenty children and twenty Peace Movement members, as I'm sure you've heard. Not exactly high-value intelligence assets. We didn't torture them at all, Essa 283. We have a Kandrona generator. They're living in a Yeerk Pool of their very own. So we're offering you a choice. You can make this easy on yourself, and join your fellows in their off-grid Yeerk Pool. Or you can make this hard on yourself, and we starve you to death.»

"I don't believe you," Essa 283 said. "I know Rachel. She'll be furious I took her father from her. She'll want payback."

«Oh, I do,» I said. «If it were up to me, I'd watch you starve with a tub of popcorn. But Cassie's the one making the decisions around here. I'll back her play, whatever it is.»

«I can prove it to you,» Cassie said. «I'll show you the Pool. You might as well come along. You have nothing to lose.»

"Fine," Essa growled. "Show me."

Cassie demorphed. When she was human, Essa made a grab for her. I snarled, leapt, and pinned him to the ground with my paws on his chest. I snapped my teeth in his face. «You idiot,» I sneered. «You have my father's memories. You know what I'm like. Did you really think I wouldn't do anything it took to set him free?»

He went very still underneath me. He still smelled like the aftershave my dad always uses, to the wolf's keen nose. Beside me, Cassie did her weird partway morph between the two of us and ran for a pay phone.

When I finally had a moment to think, it washed over me like an ice bath. That woman, who looked vaguely familiar. Who'd saved my life, then died for it at the hands of another Controller. The name she'd screamed in her last moment, Mary Chiang. _I know that name,_ Abi said. _She's on the gymnastics team._

 _What happened to her?_ I wondered. _Oh my God – that was her mom. I remember her picking Mary up after practice. She gave her life because she thought we could save Mary. From what?_

"You're shaking," Essa 283 mocked with my dad's smooth announcer voice. "Scared, Rachel? Thinking about my people looking for you?"

I snapped my teeth again. «You really are shit-for-brains, aren't you? I'd _love_ to have some more of your people here. I have a _lot_ of anger I need to manage right now.»

Essa 283 gritted his teeth, and something landed on my back, clawing and yowling. Gheselle! I shook myself like a wet dog to fling her off, and flinched at her high-pitched cry when she hit the ground. In my moment of distraction, my dad's body thrashed under me. I knocked him to the ground again, bringing my weight to bear. Cassie came up behind me. "Lourdes is on her way."

«Good,» I said. «Can you morph wolf too? This Yeerk is a pain in my ass.»

Between two wolves, Essa stopped struggling. Cassie said to me in private thought-speech, «I can't stop thinking about that woman who saved you. She knew who you were. She had to be a Peace Movement Controller. Do you know who she is?»

«She's the mom of a girl on my gymnastics team. That's the one she begged me to help. Mary Chiang.» Suddenly, it hit me. «Oh. That's why she thought I could help. She's a Peace Movement Controller, but Mary isn't. Her Yeerk is loyal. It's like Melissa and her parents, but the other way around.»

«Oh,» Cassie said, and that one word was all I needed to know she was heartbroken. Maybe I was, too. It's so hard to find my feelings, sometimes, in the constant screaming tide of anger.

«I hope we can help her,» Quincy went on.

«We abducted my dad live on TV,» I said gloomily. «Jake is never letting us do a rescue mission ever again.»

Cassie whuffed a wolfy laugh. «No kidding. He's gonna rake us over the coals. Maybe Bachu and the Peace Movement can help? Oh. There's Lourdes.»

Without saying a word, Lourdes came over, hauled my dad to his feet, and dragged him along by the arm. We followed on his heels out of the woods like a couple of loyal pets next to Lourdes' Afghan hound dæmon. «Be a good boy!» I told Essa, lolling my tongue out and wagging my tail. To Lourdes, privately, I said, «Smart move. Show him how badass strong you are, don't give him any hint you're nonviolent. Love it.»

Lourdes flung him in the backseat of her car, with a growl from her hound dæmon. We jumped in on either side of him. "Who is this?" Essa said, eyes narrowed.

«Nunya,» I said brightly. «Nunya Beeswax. She's an old friend of ours.»

When we got out of the car, Essa tried to make a break for it, again. Cassie tackled him to the ground, Lourdes hauled him up again, and I snapped at his heels all the way inside. When we took the elevator to the secret basement, it finally sunk in that we weren't bullshitting him. He stared at the Aftran Plisam Pool, totally dumbstruck. "There were rumors," he said. "But I never thought…"

«We should probably ask permission first, shouldn't we,» Cassie said, as if the Yeerk hadn't spoken. «Maybe they don't want an Empire loyalist in there. I wouldn't blame them. Lourdes, can you do the honors?»

"No problem," Lourdes said, beaming. "I had more fun today than I've had in ages. That Yeerk is really scared of me!"

«Of course he is, you're a badass,» I said. Lourdes is a weirdly angry Chee. Maybe that's why we get along so well.

Lourdes stuck her hand in the Pool water. After a minute, she said, "Go right ahead."

«Um, hang on,» Cassie said. «Do they… know about us?»

After a pause, Lourdes said, "Yes. Tobias came to visit. He brought them up to speed. I don't think they know your name specifically, though."

«Hello, Aftran Plisam Pool,» Cassie said, while I paced a very tight circle around Dad. «I'm Cassie. One of the Animorphs. Aftran 942's friend. You may have heard of me in her story about the Iskoort. I'm here because my friend Rachel's dad got captured and infested by the Empire. We got him back, but we have to do something about his Yeerk, Essa 283. Would you guys be okay with taking him in? He's a full on conqueror, rah-rah Empire kind of Yeerk, so I'd understand if that's kind of an imposition.»

Lourdes listened to the Pool. "They just want to be clear – the alternative is killing him, right?"

«Yes,» I said. «If you don't want him, we've got that covered.»

"Then they say of course they'll take him," Lourdes said. "They're very vocal on that point."

Cassie looked at Essa 283. «So. What do you say, Essa? Would you rather die than live with Yeerks who embrace peace?»

Essa sneered. "They're pathetic. They _chose_ to live under human control."

I glared at him. The Peace Movement Controller who'd died for me today had been way less pathetic than Essa's sorry boot-licking ass.

«Some humans choose to live under Yeerk control,» Cassie said. «That doesn't make them pathetic. Acceptance isn't the same as surrender. As usual, things are more complicated than the Empire makes it seem.»

Essa's eyes flashed. But he walked up to the Yeerk Pool, knelt on the ramp, and slipped out of my Dad's ear into the sludge.

Dad went limp on the Pool's edge. Lourdes had to grab him to keep him from falling. I demorphed and rushed to his side. "Dad. _Dad_. It's me. It's Rachel. Are you okay?"

Gheselle crawled to the edge of the ramp and looked up at Abineng. She reached out a paw and batted at his nose. "Abi. Sweetheart. Oh. You came for me."

I ran a hand through Dad's salt and pepper hair. "I'm sorry I had to hurt you, Dad."

Dad clutched at me, trembling. "You got him out. You got him out. Oh, thank God."

I held him for a while nad let him ride it out. He'd done the same thing for me, when I'd cried over the divorce. Now it was my turn.

Lourdes took us up to the valley under hologram cover. I told Dad a little about the Animorphs, and how we'd rescued Mom and Jordan and Sara. He was still badly shaken. I had to ride along with him in rat morph while Lourdes carried him down the ravine into the valley, distracting him with the stupid story of how Cassie and I had acquired the rats in the first place.

Jake was waiting for us at the bottom. Cassie had been the one to break it to him, saving my ass yet again. Or maybe not. Merlyse was glaring bloody murder at me with snowy owl eyes, but Jake kept it under control for my dad. I wasn't sure if my mom was the best person for him right now, but at least she was a familiar face, and Jordan and Sara would definitely make him smile. I delivered him to them, and watched Dad sink to the floor with Jordan and Sara on top of him, their dæmons all cats in a purring pile on a bed, while Mom looked on fondly.

Jake came and stood next to me in the entrance to the yurt, Merlyse on his shoulder as a jay like Caedhren, but gray instead of his blue. "What did you do," he said, resigned. He looked about a million years old, and I suddenly realized what I'd done to him. What I'd done to Mary Chiang's mother.

I felt exhausted and sick. "Ugh. Just go to Ax's scoop and watch it on the news."

"The _news_?" Jake whisper-screamed. Merlyse made a choked croaking noise in her throat.

"Yeah, he was in the studio. We thought it'd keep the Yeerks from doing anything too crazy if they were doing it on live television. Look, it doesn't matter, does it? They know who we are."

"It matters," Jake insisted. "If we take this war into the open, they might do it too, and then it's game over."

"Skip the lecture," I said. "I know it was stupid. A woman died today. A Peace Movement Controller. She saved me from a Yeerk sniper. Then the sniper killed her for it. She died begging me to save her daughter from the Empire." I leaned back against Abi's neck, warm and waiting for me. "It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't gone riding in there to the rescue. Now I have to live with it. So yeah, I've learned my lesson, Jake."

"Have you, Rachel?" Jake said, turning all of his heavy focus on me. "Because Tom's going off the rails already. I can't deal with two people in this valley abusing the morphing power. I'm happy to see Uncle Dan again. You know that. But we have an important mission tomorrow rescuing Hork-Bajir-Controllers. Including little kids they're keeping in a pen, like pigs. And if you go off-script and get some Hork-Bajir kids killed…" Merlyse half-tucked her face under her wing. "Maybe you can live with that. I know I couldn't."

That stung me. Did Jake really think I wouldn't care if I put the lives of Hork-Bajir kids at risk?

 _It wasn't as if we didn't know we could get employees at the news station killed,_ Abi pointed out, Ms. Chiang's dying scream echoing in my ears again, _and we raided the studio anyway._

 _I should have brought Tobias along in my head,_ I thought miserably. _I can't trust my own brain without him in it. But Tobias needs to come on the mission too, in his own body._

"You won't need to worry about me," I said, a little shakily, hoping it was true. "I'll stay on the mission."


	8. Chapter 8

**Jake**

Tobias wheeled overhead and told me, «It's time.»

I passed the skewer of vegetables I'd been grilling over to my dad. "Gotta go. We have a planning session for the raid tomorrow night."

Tom looked up from his own skewer. "Can I come?"

I sighed. "We've been over this, Tom. I'm not taking you on missions until Luis says you're doing better. And even then, you should probably do something easier like patrols first. That's how Loren got started."

"It's just a planning session. Maybe I could help you come up with ideas."

Mom put a hand on Tom's shoulder. "I know you're feeling better, hon, but don't you want to wait until you're at your best before you start fighting battles? We already almost lost you."

"Jake is treating me like I'm the kid brother," Tom complained.

"I'm not," I said flatly. "I'm treating you like a soldier who can't follow orders." And I turned on my heel and walked away, Merlyse walking dignified as a tundra swan beside me.

Toby, a few of her warriors, Ax, and Loren were already at the meeting rock. The rest of the Animorphs and a squadron of Hork-Bajir warriors trickled in. Among the warriors were Jara Hamee and, to my surprise, Bek, who we'd saved from the Yeerks what felt like a million years ago. He'd grown so much I wouldn't have known him if he hadn't introduced himself. It didn't seem right that he'd just been a kid a year ago, and now he was a warrior. But the war made everybody grow up too fast and die too young, especially the Hork-Bajir, whose lives went by quicker than humans' already.

Toby called the meeting. "I believe the Animorphs have some information for us."

Bek spoke in Hork-Bajir language. I realized he was translating. That was new. But it made sense. The Hork-Bajir warriors would be able to follow along better this way.

Ax stepped forward. «Marco and I went to gather more intelligence on the training facility. Marco stole a datapad from a human-Controller exiting the facility.» He held up the datapad, which was a lot sleeker than the props on _Star Trek_. «I compromised the security and found a map of the facility.» He showed around the map, but most of the group had to squint to see it on the small screen. Toby ended up carving the map in the dirt with her blades.

Ax pointed at the map using his tail blade and explained, «There are two exits – one with a ramp up to the surface, one opening to a connecting passage to the Yeerk Pool. There is a practice range, here. They keep the children in a pen over here.»

The Hork-Bajir spent some time analyzing the structure of the pen. Then Ax went on, «I also learned about some security features of the facility, though of course there may be further secret ones that were not on this particular datapad. There is a BioFilter on the entrance that will set off alerts if non-Controllers pass through it. These alerts will also trigger alerts at the Yeerk Pool that will eventually draw reinforcements through the connecting passage. The Controllers can trigger a lockdown on the facility that completely seals off all exits five minutes after the sequence is initiated. All the Hork-Bajir in this facility have trackers embedded in their left wrists – they will need to be cut out of the children, unfortunately. And of course, there are three instructors in the _hrala_ -sight who can detect whether a non-sentient animal is a morph. One of these instructors is skilled enough to detect whether a person is infested or not based on the _hrala_ pattern around the brain.»

Toby stepped toward the meeting rock, then paused, tilted her head and focused one deep brown eye on me. I realized she was asking a silent question: would I allow her to take charge of organizing this mission? I nodded. This was her people we were trying to rescue, after all.

Toby set her hand on the meeting rock, calling attention to herself. "All right. We'll split into four teams. Team One secures the exit to the outside, making sure it's clear for everyone else to get out. Team Two is the rescue team – they will break into the pen and carry out as many children as they can. Team One at the exit will look after all evacuated children and remove their trackers. Team Three will provide cover for Team Two, holding off any Controllers that try to interfere with the rescue. Team Four secures the exit toward the Yeerk Pool, stopping anyone from coming in or out.

"I will lead Team One. I stipulate that Team Two must consist entirely of my people, as we are the best equipped to handle the children. Meret Kar will lead that team. The assignment of Animorphs to the other teams, I leave to Jake's discretion."

I nodded to Toby. "I'll lead Team Three, if the Hork-Bajir are comfortable following my orders. They'll be in thought-speech, so language won't be an issue."

Toby conferred with the warriors in their language. She said, "It won't be an issue."

"Okay," I said. "Then Marco will be in charge of Team Four."

Marco whipped his head around and stared at me.

"You did good as Prince Marco," I said. "You rescued Tom."

Marco groaned, tilted his head back, and pulled Dia across his eyes like a blindfold. "Fine. As long as nobody calls me Prince Marco _ever again_."

"Rachel and Ax will be on my team," I said. "Cassie goes with Team One and Loren with Team Four – they have big battle morphs, with moose and bison, so they can plug up those exits. Tobias, you go with Team One – you can fly up and down the ramp to carry messages and give quick backup to whoever needs it."

Toby put her hand on the meeting rock again. "My warriors have heard this speech from me many times. But all of you should hear it too. We have more than ourselves to protect. We have the location of Kref Magh, and everyone who lives here. We can't be taken. If the Yeerks get in our heads, they'll know Kref Magh's location, and everyone here is at risk. If anyone should be captured or left behind, I know we will all do whatever we must to make sure the Yeerks don't take us alive."

A chill went through me. We'd all said it, at one point or another, how we'd rather be dead than taken. But there was so much more to it now. So much more at risk. Most of the Guardians of the Galaxy lived in the valley, now. Toby was right. No matter what happened, we couldn't let it be betrayed.

We attacked the facility under cover of night. This was a lot easier to do now that we weren't high school students and could get in a good solid nap beforehand.

There was a shivering-tense moment, when I was standing in the rainy night with Team Three, that I felt like I had way too much responsibility. You'd think I'd have gotten so overloaded with that feeling by this point that it wouldn't even register anymore, but now I had Hork-Bajir warriors at my command, too. They hadn't agreed to make me their leader, like the Animorphs had. They were just following me because Toby told them they should. That made it worse, somehow, if I got them killed.

«Are you ready?» I asked my team, armoring my voice in the hard shell of leadership. Clear to my tiger eyes in the darkness, the Hork-Bajir warriors under my command waved their tail tips, which I had been told in advance was a confirmation signal.

Then Cassie in her moose morph broke down the doors to the facility, and it was on.

«I can't believe Cassie gets to be the one to bust us in,» Rachel whined. She was in grizzly morph beside me. «She doesn't even appreciate how fun it is.»

 _It is kind of fun sometimes,_ Merlyse thought. _Remember those times with rhino morph?_

 _Well, yeah,_ I thought, _but this might not be the time to think about that, Merl._

Team One, ahead of us, charged down the ramp. Alerts blared from the Gleet BioFilter. A battle cry rose from the Hork-Bajir that I can only imagine was the sound dinosaurs made when they challenged each other to battle. Then there was Dracon fire and screams of rage and pain floating up the ramp. I hunched down in the wet grass, coiled my muscles for the leap, and waited for the signal.

Tobias's thought-speech came up from the underground ramp. «We've cleared the entrance! Get down here, now!»

«Come on!» I told my team, and let loose the jump the tiger had been waiting to make. I sailed past the ruined doors, past the blaring Gleet BioFilter, into a fluorescent-lit passageway that smelled like Hork-Bajir blood. Ax caught up to me in almost no time at all, and I trusted that Rachel and the Hork-Bajir would follow. I leapt over the bodies I found along the ramp – no way to tell if they were of free Hork-Bajir or Hork-Bajir-Controllers – and finally, I found the living.

Toby's team had a blockade around the entrance, which parted for me and Ax as we blazed through. Controllers, mostly Hork-Bajir but a few humans too, were pouring out from the mess hall and training areas. Dracon fire seared toward us. I hunched low to avoid it, then pounced on a Dracon-wielding Controller. He cried out and went skidding across the hard floor – _when did I start thinking of Hork-Bajir-Controllers as he and she?_ Merlyse wondered distantly – beneath my paws. I batted the Dracon beam out of his grasp and moved on. Another Controller leapt on my back and grabbed on like a monkey, digging in blades. I roared with all my strength and shook the Hork-Bajir off like Homer shaking himself after a bath. I crushed one of her feet beneath my paw and felt something break.

I took a moment to survey the battlefield. We'd kept the surge of Controllers at bay. Ax was surrounded by hands, fingers, and toes he'd cut off, strewn around him in a messy circle. Rachel was pushing forward, harrying some Controllers trying to retreat. «Rachel, focus!» I told her, and she let them get away and held the line. Team Two came surging in, past the blockade, toward the pen where they kept the kids. Team Four would come last.

A human-Controller – chubby, bleach blonde, sheep dæmon, like somebody's mother – rallied some retreating Hork-Bajir around her. There was a moment when Merlyse wondered, _how can we stop this without hurting her,_ and I was suddenly disgusted with myself. The Hork-Bajir whose foot I'd just crushed was also somebody's mother, probably. Maybe even mother to one of the kids kept here like a pig for the slaughter.

 _This is war,_ I told Merlyse. _It doesn't matter whether this woman was somebody's mother._

I growled like a truck starting up and charged at her.

She snarled and fired her Dracon beam at me. Searing pain – she'd burned off half my tail! The warriors she'd gathered tried to make a break for the pen, where Team Two had just broken in, and the melee of blade against blade pitched up like a blender set to liquefy. I tore out a Hork-Bajir's throat after she cut off my ear with her elbow blade. I got a long streaky Dracon burn along my side that stung like a thousand bees when I broke a Controller's artery and soaked my open wound in spurting blood. _I am not in good shape,_ I thought dazedly, breaking away. _If only I could demorph…_

 _Why can't you?_ Merlyse said. _We don't need to do it in secret anymore. Just in a safe place._

The thought disturbed me. It felt like trying to morph from tiger to fly, or acquiring DNA from a morph. Like I was violating a rule of the universe. Still I retreated behind Team One's blockade around the entrance, where I was protected, but anybody in the facility could see me, and demorphed. I saw a human-Controller behind cover trying to fire at the blockade take notice of me and stare. I felt horribly exposed.

Tobias said from overhead, «I've already done that. When a sniper burned my wing off. It's so weird, how they've almost made this easier for us.»

I reversed the morph, and when I had thought-speech again, I said, «Doesn't feel any easier to me. It just means we have to keep on fighting, no matter what. Just heal up and throw ourselves back in.» And so I went back in, like a video game character after a power-up, tired but unhurt. I saw that Team Four was in position at the Yeerk Pool exit, clearing out people who had started down the passageway to marshal more troops. A steady stream of free Hork-Bajir came through the blockade and up the ramp, some injured and in retreat, some from Team Two carrying scared kids, a couple even dragging along incapacitated adult Controllers.

The melee was moving closer and closer to the pen, which was not good. Another pair of Controllers splintered off to try to make a run on the rescuers. I was about to intervene when a third Hork-Bajir joined them, spoke in their language, and pointed them toward the Controller headquarters. The two ran back there, and when they were out of sight, the third returned to the fray – on our side.

I rushed to his side to protect him. He'd helped Team Two carry out their mission by misdirecting the Controllers. «Are you a Peace Movement defector?» I said, scattering hostile Hork-Bajir away from him with a headlong rush. A Peace Movement turning traitor at just the right time had saved Rachel's life. Maybe this one didn't have to die. «If you come with us, we can protect you.»

«A _defector_? In the middle of a _battle_?» the Hork-Bajir said, disbelieving. In thought-speech.

« _GOD FUCKING DAMMIT, TOM!_ » I roared. The air around me shuddered, and I realized I'd actually roared with my tiger voice, too. I usually don't let anger get the best of me like that. But I was so blinded by rage I didn't even notice the Hork-Bajir that barreled toward me, knocking me to the ground and flattening the breath out of me.

Tom let out a dinosaur screech and did some kind of move from his old karate classes, like he used to do to me when I hogged the Nintendo for too long, but much harder and faster. He punched my attacker right in the throat. She staggered, and Tom kicked her in the head to put her down. As I got back to my feet, Tom pinned her with a knee on her chest, and used his other long knee blade to open her throat, flooding himself with sticky dark blood. It was shockingly brutal. Rachel will mow through Hork-Bajir in battle, sure, but in a melee like this, she wouldn't stop to cut the throat of an opponent she'd already knocked to the ground when there were so many more Controllers left in the battle. Up ahead, I saw Rachel herself intercept a couple of Controllers that tried to grab Tom while he was getting up from his kneeling position over the gory corpse he'd made.

I didn't have time to grill Tom over why he was acting like this. I just said, «We're not here to kill Yeerks. We're here to get those kids out of here. Isn't that why you wanted to fight?» And I went to fight back-to-back with Rachel, in a whirlwind of claws and fur.

Once I was properly back in the fight, pushing away my worry for Tom, I could see that Team Four was really helping us turn the tide. Marco had cut off a possible retreat for the Controllers, giving them no space for respite. Loren was the powerhouse blocking the exit, but Marco also dragged over a bunch of targets from the firing range to help barricade it, and his team held off all comers.

As I tore a Dracon beam out of a Controller's hand with my teeth, I heard Marco cry out, «Incoming! We've got reinforcements coming in from the Pool!»

A clock started ticking in my head. Could Team Four hold them off? For how long? How many kids were left in the pen? I moved in that direction to check out what was happening.

I hadn't exactly taken a count, but it looked to me like more than half the kids were out. From this perspective, I could also see that Team Three was starting to run out of steam. I recognized some of them behind Team One's blockade, catching their breath as they assessed their Dracon burns and blade slashes.

That was when I saw them. A splinter group of Controllers, three Hork-Bajir and a human, who'd broken into the pen by coming around the back and burning away the fence with Dracon fire. The rescuers from Team Two put down the kids they'd been about to carry away and rushed over to engage them.

One of the Hork-Bajir-Controllers broke away from the fight, seized a child, and cut off their shrill scream with a wrist blade to the throat. The little Hork-Bajir child convulsed and bubbled blood in the Controller's arms. He tossed the dying little kid to the ground like garbage. When the rescuers heard, they flew into a rage like I'd never seen in a Hork-Bajir. Jara Hamee lost most of his forehead blades in a Dracon blast in his rush to stop the murderer from killing again. But they'd left the human-Controller unguarded, and he fired his Dracon beam, vaporizing another child.

More Hork-Bajir took notice of what was going on in the pen. They went into a frenzy. Some of the members of Team Three broke away to rush in and stop it. Discipline was breaking down.

 _Why are they doing this?_ Merlyse moaned.

The general in me, that I'd grown and watered with blood for years, seemed to fill me in completely, pushing out anything it couldn't reconcile with itself. I felt cold, like a memory of the Siberian wastes the tiger had come from. _Hork-Bajir grow up fast. Every child we take away from them becomes a warrior they have to fight later. They'd rather just get rid of the kids than have them used against the Empire._

 _We have to get out of here before they kill all the kids,_ Merlyse said, horrified. _This is all going to hell. How do we get out of here without losing half our people?_

 _We can't think in terms of people,_ I thought. _We think in terms of soldiers. There are tools, and there are obstacles, and we have to use the tools get past the obstacles._ I turned back, covering Rachel's flank again, and surveyed the battlefield. More Controllers were coming in through the hole in the back fence of the pen. Team Three was disintegrating. I saw a Hork-Bajir slash another one's eye out, and some part of me wondered, or maybe somehow knew, that it was Tom.

And then I knew something else. I had the right tool for the job.

 _No,_ Merlyse said, because she could see it in my mind, terrifyingly clear. _No, Jake, you can't do this._

 _Do you have a better idea?_ I thought desperately. _Because I'm listening!_

 _Better for our family?_ Merlyse said. _Or better for the mission?_

The cold did not thaw. _Better for the mission,_ I said.

 _Then no,_ Merlyse said, resigned. _I don't have anything better for the mission._

«Tom,» I said, reaching out with private thought-speech. «Tom, can you hear me?»

I saw a Hork-Bajir kick away an enemy he'd brought to the ground, then turn his head on his snake neck toward me. He was covered in blood. I couldn't tell how much was his. «Jake? What's going on? Do you need me?»

«Yes,» I said. «It's something very important. Before, I saw you pretend to be a Controller and send some Yeerks in the wrong direction. Can you do that again?»

«Sure,» said Tom. «I spent a lot of time in the Pool. I know how they act. I speak their language.»

A Hork-Bajir tried to sneak up on me. Rachel hurled him out of the way. «Are you sure you can keep up the act? Not just for a quick misdirection?»

«I had a Yeerk in my head for three years. I told you. I know them.»

«Okay,» I said. «I need you to go to the headquarters. Act like someone who knows what they're doing. Tell everyone that you saw some insects with your _hrala_ -sight that weren't really insects, but now you don't know where they are. The bandits have infiltrated the facility, and the only way to protect it is to initiate lockdown.»

«Lockdown? But then we'll only have five minutes to clear out.»

So he'd been spying on the planning session, then. Of course he had. I tried to let go of how much that hurt. «Five minutes of total confusion, and then they're all trapped down here. It's the perfect cover for our escape. A clean getaway. For us.» A battle was raging all around us, and I wished I could disappear into the crush, so Tom wouldn't have to watch me while I said this. «Not for you. You'll have to stay, to convince them it's real. To stop anyone who tries to reverse the lockdown procedure.»

Tom paused to deliver a hard kick to a Controller who had come too close. He stared at the blood on his feet for a moment. Then he looked up and said, «I'm the only one who can do this. I'm the only one who can pass for a Hork-Bajir-Controller.»

«Yeah,» I said. «It's you or no one. And if it's no one… I think a lot of those kids are going to die.»

«I meant it, Jake. When I said I wanted the morphing power to help the Hork-Bajir. I know you don't believe me, but… maybe you will now.» He seemed to stand to attention, as if to a trumpet call I couldn't hear. «I'll do it.»

«Tom, I…» I couldn't do this. There was no room for the little brother in me, not now. «The Guardians of the Galaxy honor you for your service. All of us.»

He saluted me, a soldier to his superior officer. Then he slipped away from the battle.

«What was that?» Rachel said. «It looked like you and and that Hork-Bajir had a really intense conversation. Where is he going?»

«Into the headquarters,» I said. And because it was pointless to sugar-coat things to Rachel after all we'd been through together, I went on, «That was Tom. He snuck onto the mission, like an _idiot_ , but now that he's here I – » I actually almost said to Rachel, _I had to use him._ Instead, I said, «I don't know if he'll come back.» And I did what Rachel always does in moments like these, and lost myself to the battle. The only moments that snapped me out of the blood haze, just for a second, were the occasional cries of a child screaming as it died.

I don't know how long it was before lights flashed and a voice blared from all around: "LOCKDOWN PROCEDURE INITIATED. ALL EXITS WILL BE SEALED IN FIVE. MINUTES."

I let loose my tiger roar. «To me!» I cried. «Team Three, to me! Don't run, form up and follow me!»

Team Two was the first team out, the ones not under direct fire grabbing a few last children and scrambling for the exit. Controllers broke past our retreating line and rushed at Team One, trying to block our escape. Team Three gathered around me, and I led a rush to the defense of Team One, trapping the enemy between our groups. Team Four broke away from fighting the reinforcements and filled in behind us, holding them off from our rear.

"LOCKDOWN PROCEDURE INITIATED. ALL EXITS WILL BE SEALED IN FOUR. MINUTES."

The resistance broke, and I flung myself into the gap between Yeerk forces, toward the exit. Part of it was because we had to get out there, now. Part of it was that I couldn't bear to hear this countdown anymore.

I ran past Cassie, who was still holding the line. I ran with Tobias overhead, flying up the ramp to tell the part of Team One protecting the kids up there, «Come on, get moving! Back to the valley!»

"LOCKDOWN LOCKDOWN PROCEDURE INITIATED. ALL EXITS WILL BE SEALED IN THREE. MINUTES."

And I was up and out, a curtain of cool rain washing over me. I could smell my own blood mixed with the harsh alien tang of Hork-Bajir blood as the rain sluiced it off. I was past being able to register my own pain, but I was probably pretty hurt. I got clear of the retreat and demorphed, right there under the stars and the rain, where anyone who happened to be on the edge of town could see. Merlyse, a little gray bird, chirped a warning, and I morphed to wolf. I caught Rachel with my thought-speech and said, «You should go to wolf too. It's going to be a long march back to Kref Magh. Wolves will have the endurance.»

As I morphed to wolf, I heard something slam shut in the passageway from the facility, and a Hork-Bajir scream. That exit had been closed off, and someone hadn't been quite fast enough. Tom wouldn't be the only one trapped down there.

When the wolf senses kicked in, I could smell Rachel's wolf-scent, Ax's Andalite scent, and Loren, Cassie, and Marco's human scents as they demorphed. I couldn't smell Tobias, but of course I wouldn't – he was in the sky. The Animorphs were safe. «Tobias?» I said. «Are you in owl morph?»

«Yeah,» Tobias said.

«Ax, Loren, you don't have wolf morphs, so you join him in the sky,» I said. «Marco, Cassie, morph wolf. The Empire might still send people after us.»

It was a slow, terrible march through the woods, up into the mountains. Hork-Bajir are tough, but the wounded still had to take it slow. It wasn't cold – around here it never is – but with the rain it was still cool and damp and miserable. The children cried nonstop. I couldn't blame them.

Rachel joined me during the march. «Tom didn't come back.»

«He can still make it,» I said, not knowing how much I believed what I was saying. «I'll come back when lockdown is over. He'll be there, I bet.»

« _We'll_ come back when lockdown is over,» Rachel said firmly.

The raw pain rushed over all the barriers I'd built around it. I shouted, «Rachel, I left him down there! I told him to stay behind! This is on _me_! You don't have to pretend like… like we're still…»

«Like we're still family?» Rachel said. «Like I murdered a kid once so you wouldn't have to? I don't have to pretend. None of that's changed.»

That struck me silent. The last time we had a rogue morpher, Rachel had been the one to put a stop to it. This time…

 _Is that why?_ Merlyse wondered. _Is that why we did it? To get rid of a problem morpher?_

 _No. No, it was to save the Hork-Bajir kids. It was better for the mission._ I kept saying and thinking things as if it didn't matter how much I believed them. Why did I keep doing that? «What would I have to do?» I said. «How far would I have to go to lose you, Rachel?»

«You exterminated a whole species and you still didn't lose us,» Rachel said. «You won't lose me, Jake. No matter what. We're going to win this.»

That didn't make me feel better. It made me feel so much worse.

We lost a Hork-Bajir on the march, one who'd been too wounded even for Hork-Bajir regeneration. The march stopped to arrange her body curled around the base of a tree. I'd never known before what Hork-Bajir did for their dead. I'd never left a dead Hork-Bajir in a place fit for a funeral. I bowed my head in the rain, just for a moment, while the Hork-Bajir all chanted words I didn't understand. Then we moved on. I avoided all the Animorphs but Rachel for the journey. It was too much to bear. Just breathing was too much to bear.

When we reached the edge of the valley, the Hork-Bajir climbed down slowly and carefully, the healthy carrying the children and the wounded. I looked down over the edge. Every fiber in my body was screaming for me to turn back around right now and wait outside the facility for Tom. But it wasn't safe to just charge back there. The Yeerks would be on high alert. I could get caught. I needed a plan. But I was all out of plans. Right now, I needed someone to make one for me. I needed Marco.

I didn't know where he was, but I reached out for him with private thought-speech. «Marco?»

«Jake,» he said. I caught the relief in his voice. «What's up?»

«Chain of command,» I said. «I need you to step up.»

Marco came up beside me. «What for?»

«Tom snuck into the mission in Hork-Bajir morph,» I said. Beside me, Marco's ears and tail drooped. Hating myself for hiding the truth, I said, «He got trapped down there. At the end. I need to be there when lockdown ends. To see…»

«Yeah,» Marco said, as gentle as he ever gets. «I get it. And you need me to be the plan guy?»

«Yeah. Rachel wants to come too.»

We stood in the rain, watching the Hork-Bajir climb into the moonlit gray mist of the valley below. Marco said, «There are Hork-Bajir-Controllers in there who can catch us in stealth morphs. That's kind of the whole point of the place. So just hanging out as birds in sight of the exit isn't an option.» He paused. «You're not going to like my plan.»

«I don't care,» I said. «I'll do it.»

«You can't be a sneaky morph, so you hide in plain sight. You make a human morph with Ax's Frolis thingy. Cassie morphs Yeerk, and you pretend to be a human-Controller on watch duty. I morph wolf and pretend to be your dæmon, but ready to kick ass if you need it. Rachel will hang out at the edge of thought-speech range in bird morph and cover you with owl eyes.»

«I hate that plan,» I said, «but Cassie will probably do it.» I retreated from the cliff's edge and hung out behind the tree line. «Can you… tell them?»

«You're not gonna tell me it's stupid? 'Cause it is. It could go super wrong.»

«Whatever. Everything's gone to hell. Just tell them.»

Marco trotted off. In the darkness, I demorphed. Merlyse, perched on my arm as the little gray bird she'd been more often lately, said, "You'll have to tell. If you don't, Cassie will just see it when she infests us."

Just thinking about telling her what I'd done made me feel like I was trapped in some horrible morph. A Taxxon, maybe. Some prison of a body I'd never be able to escape. The rain soaked through my morphing outfit.

A couple of Hork-Bajir from the rear-guard, rounding up the wounded stragglers from the woods, stopped and stared at me. " _Hralathu_ ," they said.

I knew what that word meant. I'd heard it before. But I was too dazed to put it together. "What?"

" _Hralathu_ ," said the older warrior. "The flowering of _hrala_. No more child. Adult."

I stared at Merlyse on my arm. "Merl? Did you…?"

"Oh," Merlyse said. "Oh. She's right. I can't…" She spread her wings, straining as if for flight, then shook her head. "This is my form. I can't change it. This is it."

The warrior's scarred face broke into a smile. "Happy day. Free _kawatnoj. Hralathu_ for shape-changer. We wish good." And she and her younger comrade went to find injured Hork-Bajir to help.

Cassie, Marco, and Rachel, all human, came to me under the trees. Abineng's silhouette was huge and eerie. I looked from Merlyse to Cassie. In a small voice, I said, "Cassie, what kind of bird is this?"

They all traded looks. Cassie's throat worked. Quincy said, "Merlyse, you've been that bird before. I saw. That's a whiskey jack."

"A what?" Merlyse said.

"A whiskey jack. It lives in Canada, way up north in the pine forests. They call it a whiskey jack because there's an Algonquin god, Wisakedjak, that's supposed to take its shape."

"The god of what?" Rachel said.

"A trickster," Cassie said.

"I don't have time for this," I said. "Merlyse just settled and I don't even have time for it." My traitorous voice choked up and broke. "If we're going to do this, Cassie, you need to know what I've done." Hot tears mixed with cool rain on my face. "It's my fault Tom's down there. I made him stay behind. He pretended to be a Hork-Bajir-Controller and triggered the lockdown. I told him he had to stay, to make it seem real. To make sure nobody stopped the lockdown. He's trapped and it's my fault." I looked around. "Do you still want to come with me?"

Rachel nodded. I knew she was still in.

Marco shrugged a little, shifting Dia on his shoulders. "I… kind of figured that out already."

Cassie said, "No one followed us into the woods. We didn't lose anyone else. That's because of what Tom did, right?"

"Maybe," I said. "I don't know for sure what would have happened if I'd done something else."

"There's always a maybe," Cassie said. "There are thirty kids free tonight. I want to go. If Tom gets out, I want to thank him."

The tears flowed freely. I did nothing to stop them. They were just hot rain. "Don't read my mind, Cassie. Or do it as little as you can. You don't want to see what's in it right now."

"Rachel and I aren't just on watch duty," Marco said. "We're on distraction duty. For as long as you have to wait, Cassie and Rachel and I are keeping your mind way, way off what just happened down there."

"Besides," Quincy said, looking at Merlyse. "There's a bird we need to tell you about."

"Do I really want to know?" Merl said.

"Let me tell you something from experience," Quincy said. "Settling makes you face both the worst and best of yourself. If you don't want to deal with that right now, I can't blame you. But I think settling might be the universe's way of telling you something about who you are that you needed to hear."

"Okay," Merl said. "Then let's find out who I am." And I focused on the owl morph, for a long and miserable flight through the rain.


	9. Chapter 9

**Jake**

Our first stop was the mall, to retrieve one of Rachel's clothing caches; I couldn't pass for a Controller in my morphing outfit. Fortunately, the rain slacked off, so the clothes didn't get wet. In the alley behind the mall with all the dumpsters, I acquired Marco, Cassie, and Rachel. I clasped one of each of their hands between two of mine. Merlyse stayed perched on top of my head, where I couldn't see her.

Each of us carried a clothing item out to the edge of town, like the owls delivering packages in _Harry Potter_. Behind a bus station, Cassie and I demorphed and set down the clothes on the dirty concrete. "I can infest you first," Cassie said. "I know how to do the Frolis Maneuver."

Rachel kept watch in case anyone happened to be wandering by at five in the morning. Marco morphed to wolf. Cassie did her morph, which I knew from watching it before was really gross, but I was in a distant gray space beyond being disgusted by anything. _We've done this before,_ Merlyse said. _With Marco. With Cassie, even, though we can't really remember it._

I eyed the large slug on the ground. There were real Earth slugs drawn out by the rain, and it was only when they were side by side that I realized how alien Yeerks really were. The Yeerk didn't look anything like the Earth slugs. It didn't have the flexible little stalks on their heads. It had lumps in weird patterns along its body, and palps on the front end. When its slime touched the tip of a blade of grass, the grass turned brown. _I'm not like Rachel. I'm never going to be okay with this. I'm always going to hate it._

«The wolf does _not_ like the smell of that thing,» Marco said. «It's pretty sure this is a turd from a giant poison monster and I should high-tail it back to my wolf-mommy's den and cry.»

"Thanks, Marco. That really makes me feel better about this."

I picked up the Yeerk – Cassie – and held the palps up against my ear. Cassie wriggled in, weirdly cool and wet in my ear, like getting a lot of water trapped in there when I was swimming. There was pain, then numbness, then my body just let go. It would almost have felt good not to have make any decisions, even about when to blink, if it weren't so terrifying.

«This'll only be for a moment,» Cassie said, very gently, «while I do the morph. Then you're back in the driver's seat.»

She didn't want me to be afraid. I couldn't help it, but I tried. I got a little shorter, but I stayed broad-shouldered and solid. My hair felt heavier on my head. When I blinked, my eyelashes were longer. And of course, Merlyse disappeared.

«What do you think?» Cassie thought-spoke at Marco. «I tried not to make it look too much like Ax.»

«You look like Ax's jock brother. You're on the football team, he does fencing. You make fun of him for being a fancy nerd.» Marco's face broke into a doggy grin. «You're both pretty cute, though. All of us should have kids. We obviously have primo genes.»

Rachel said, «You're the Fila model, Ax is the Calvin Klein model. Come on, let's move.»

I had my body back. I put on Rachel's spare clothes and followed Marco, who had a better sense of direction as a wolf, toward the facility. When I got there, I didn't sit down. I was bone-deep tired, but walking gave me something to do besides wait, and anyway I was supposed to be a Controller on watch duty.

I couldn't think about Tom. If I thought about Tom, I'd remember all the warnings I'd ignored that giving him the morphing power was a bad idea, and then I'd remember the moment I made the decision to –

«So, Merlyse,» Quincy said, «do you want me to tell you about whiskey jacks?»

«God, tell me anything you want,» Merlyse said. «Just talk.»

«Do you want me to let Marco and Rachel in on the conversation? Both of them are pretty good at keeping your mind off things.»

This talk probably wasn't going to be pretty, given that this was _my_ settled form we were talking about. I kept imagining Merlyse as some kind of monster bird that ate its own young. But Cassie was right. Marco and Rachel did know how to keep things from getting too dark. If nothing else, they could just start arguing with each other really loudly. «Yeah, sure.»

Opening up her thought-speech, Cassie said, «Whiskey jacks live in the northern forests of Canada. All the other songbirds go south in the autumn, to where it's warmer and brighter. But the whiskey jack is the master of the long winter. It doesn't just survive through the dark months. It thrives. It's the only Canadian bird that breeds in February, when the forest is covered in snow and the sun barely rises.

«The whiskey jack does it by preparing for the winter all through the summer. They collect food and hide it under bark, in the forks of trees, in thousands and thousands of caches. They're very careful about it – if another bird sees them caching food, they'll move the food to a different place so it doesn't get stolen. In the winter, they can remember all of the places they stored food, and eat it to live. They live in small groups – the older pair incubates the eggs in the dark of winter, and the younger birds help protect and feed the fledglings once they're out of the nest. They can protect the fledglings the same way that blue jays attack Tobias sometimes – they form up a group and keep pecking at the predator until it goes away.»

Cassie hesitated. Dread curdled my stomach. Now she was going to get to the ugly part. «In the fall, if the breeding pair has more than one chick from last winter – there's a power struggle. The strongest sibling pushes the weaker ones off the territory. The strongest one stays, eats its parents' cached food, and helps raise its younger siblings. And the weaker ones have to find another territory and another group to join – or they starve.

«But. Some of them do find a place. Breeding pairs will take in a stranger for the winter, if the stranger will help them raise their young. So…» Cassie sent a warm feeling through me, but it didn't really help.

I leaned back against a tree, feeling weak and nauseated. Marco pressed up against my legs, like Homer did sometimes when he wanted to be pet. «How did you _know_ , Merlyse? How did you… is this some kind of sick joke? A bird that pushes its siblings out into the cold to starve to death? Right after I… how did you _KNOW?_ Why am I like this?»

«I didn't know,» Merlyse said miserably. «That's not how it works. The shape just… felt right. I don't know why we're like this.»

«Why are _you_ like this? How did you think _I_ felt?» Quincy said. I could feel the passion rolling off him. «When Dad told me I'm a vampire bat that pretends to be a baby bird so it can snuggle up to birds and suck their blood?» When he felt Merlyse's horror, he said, «I didn't tell you that because I didn't want you to _know_! You're not the only one who's ever felt like a monster, Merlyse. I bet if you asked Abineng and Diamanta, they would say the same thing. You're _not alone_.»

Marco and Rachel hadn't heard any of that. Just the story about what whiskey jacks were like. They'd spent the last few minutes arguing. When I tuned in, Rachel was saying, «…no way Merlyse would beat Caedhren in a fight.»

«I dunno. She's pretty hardcore for a cute little bird,» Marco said. He started rubbing his head against my thigh and licking my hand. It reminded me so much of Homer I almost wanted to laugh. I scratched his ears, and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. «Ohhhh man,» he said. «Now I know why dogs are so wild about getting their ears scratched. That is awesome.»

It should have been weird. Marco wasn't Homer, after all. He was my best friend, and I was petting his head. Not to mention Cassie was a Yeerk in my head while I did it. Maybe it was just so weird it went all the way back around to being okay, somehow. Whatever it was, I gave into it. I sank into a crouch and scratched the thick ruff around Marco's neck with both hands. He licked my face. "Hey, stop that! You're not Homer, you have no excuse."

«The wolf wanted to,» Marco whined. «It thinks you're my pack, and that's what it's supposed to do with pack.»

I couldn't see Rachel in the darkness, but she said, «I just checked a clock on a building – you three have an hour and a half left in morph. Awww, isn't that sweet. You know, dogs like sniffing their own butts and can't be trusted outside without a leash on. It's no wonder Marco's taking to this canine thing.»

«Awoooooo,» Marco said.

«Oh, shit!» Rachel said. «I hear banging sounds coming from the entrance. Get into Controller mode, now! I'm gonna head out to the end of thought-speak range. Call me if you need me. Bye!»

«Take over, Cassie,» I thought desperately. «You know how to act like a Controller, right?»

«I think so,» Cassie said nervously. «Marco, act like a Controller dæmon, quick!»

Marco stood up straight, his flank just touching my leg. My eyes started scanning around, like I was trying to be alert. I could hear the banging now too. A Hork-Bajir head popped up from the entrance that Cassie had warped with her moose hooves. My head nodded to him, a confident nod like I had everything under control. He nodded back, then called back down the ramp in Hork-Bajir language. Hork-Bajir started to fan out from the facility.

«Shit,» I said. «I didn't actually think about what happens now. Do we have to go down there? How do we find Tom?»

«He might be one of these Hork-Bajir,» Marco said. «Do you know what his morph looks like?»

«No! He only got that morph like a week ago!»

A Hork-Bajir-Controller walking past me gave me a funny look. "Your aura is… strange."

I totally blanked out in panic, but Cassie managed to say, "My host's dæmon just stopped changing form. According to the humans this is a major life change."

"Ah," the Controller said, and moved on.

«This is stupid,» Merlyse muttered. «I'll get this done with.» She reached out with private thought-speech. «Tom! Tom, are you here? Tom!»

« _Jake!_ »

Relief flooded me, so intense that my legs would have started shaking if Cassie hadn't been in charge of my body. «Tom! Oh my God, Tom! Get over here! I'm the mixed-race guy with the wolf dæmon. Follow me into the woods. Keep acting like we're Controllers talking about Yeerk business.»

A young Hork-Bajir, scratched up but clean, came toward me. "Safe?" he said.

Cassie nodded my head. "Safe. I've been keeping watch." And we walked into the woods together.

«The coast is clear,» Rachel said. «You can stop acting like Controllers now. It's way freaky.»

Cassie let go of her control. I started shaking from the stress and relief. Tom and I looked at each other. At the exact same time, we said, «"I am so sorry."»

«What do you have to be sorry for?» Tom demanded. «You told me I wasn't supposed to go on this mission. I did it anyway. This is on me.»

"I made you stay down there! I left you! I thought you were going to die!" My throat locked up with the effort to hold back the tears.

«Your plan worked. I'm not dead. And this is my fault. I didn't listen to you. I did whatever I felt like instead of what would help you and the Hork-Bajir. I was doing it all wrong.»

I let out a long, shaky breath. "I don't care about that, Tom. I'm just so happy you're alive. Let's demorph." I closed my eyes and felt my body grow and soften back into my own shape. There was a light weight on my shoulder as Merlyse reappeared.

When I opened my eyes, Tom was outlined by the first rays of dawn through the trees, blades gleaming at the edges in pink and gold. He held up a big scaly hand to the light, examining the little streaks of blood he hadn't quite cleaned off. When he noticed me watching, he said, «I'm sorry, Jake. I can't.»

In a tiny voice, I said, "What?"

«I couldn't find a place to be alone in time,» Tom said. «I had to keep pretending to be a Hork-Bajir-Controller. There were free Hork-Bajir trapped down there. Tak Shipa, Dak Patoo, Majat Tel, Rofa Sheegak, Demel Hrooma. The Yeerks tried to capture them – they all killed themselves before they could be taken. If the Yeerks thought I was anything but a Hork-Bajir-Controller, they would have tried to capture me too. And I can't go through that again, Jake. Never. It would do worse than kill me. It was the only way, and I'm _sorry_!» He bent his head and held it in his hands, covering his eyes and his beak. «You all worked so hard to rescue me and bring me to the valley and take care of me and I… I… I trapped myself in this body you can't even _touch_! I locked Delareyne in another dimension and threw away the key!»

I walked up to Tom. I wanted to hug him, but he was right: with all of the blades, I didn't know how to do it without tearing myself to pieces. I grabbed his forearms very carefully between the wrist blades and the elbow blades and pulled them down. Then I reached up for his face, and pulled it down to my level. I pressed my forehead to the flat scaly ridge in front of his forehead blade. "Listen to me," I choked out. " _Listen_. You will _always_ be my brother."

Tom let out a screeching, grinding noise like two pieces of metal scraping against each other. I made a sound that wasn't much different as the sobs tore their way out of me. My shoulders shook, but I didn't let go of him. I might have fallen to my knees if I had.

"Delareyne," Merlyse whispered. "Delareyne, I can't see you but I know you're in there too." And she flew from my shoulder to perch on Tom's forehead blade. "I settled, Delareyne. I'm a whiskey jack. I'm like a blue jay that lives in cold places." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "You can't change shape anymore. And I can't either."

Another sob made me bend forward, resting my weight against Tom's head. When Delareyne settled, I pictured when Merlyse would settle, one day. She and Delareyne would touch noses, or she would perch on Delareyne, or wrap herself around Delareyne's legs. They would be together, and they would both know exactly who they were, and they would feel so grown up. But that day had never come. Would never come. Merlyse would never see Delareyne again.

Tom's powerful hands came down gently on my shoulders. Delareyne, in her thought-speech voice, sang a song in Hebrew. At first I didn't recognize it. Then I realized it was the psalm written by King David about his dæmon Adara settling. It was the traditional song Jews sing when a dæmon settles. I'd felt nothing but misery about Merlyse settling. But Delareyne wouldn't sing this for us if she didn't feel like it was something to celebrate. And just for a minute, I felt that same joy. When she was done, Tom said, «Mazel tov, Jake.»

"Oh, God," I moaned, tears still running down my face. "Oh, God, Tom. What do we tell Mom and Dad?"

«We _don't_ ,» Tom insisted. «They already lost me once. Now they're losing me again. If they hear the whole truth, they'll lose it. We tell them it was an accident.» He expanded his thought-speech to include Marco and Rachel. «Hear me? As far as anyone else is concerned, I got left behind by accident.»

"They're not losing you," I said. "You're still here. You're still Tom."

«I can't do human things anymore, Jake. Not like this. So yeah, they are losing part of me. They're losing Delareyne. That's gonna be hard enough. And I don't want them to blame you for this. Don't tell them. This is a secret between everyone here, and nobody else.»

"You're right. It'll be easier for them if we tell them it was an accident. I don't want to make it any harder on them than it already is." I'd thought all secrets were over between me and my parents. But now I had a new one.

«We'd better get back to the valley,» Tom said, pulling away from me. Merlyse glided down from his forehead blade to my shoulder. «I need to tell them about the warriors who died down there. I need to tell them I tried to do right by them. I volunteered to… take care of the remains. Down there. All of them, Controller and free. I couldn't do all of the Hork-Bajir funeral rites – there were no trees. But I said their words for the dead. And the Mourner's Kaddish.»

That nearly did send me to my knees. I pictured Tom saying the Kaddish for the Hork-Bajir-Controllers he'd torn apart, and it hollowed me out. He'd lost himself in his rage at the Yeerk Empire, but he loved the Hork-Bajir. And when he got the chance to face what he'd done, he mourned.

Cassie stopped me from falling apart, again. I'd forgotten she was there. She'd seen it all. Marco and Rachel, too. «Ssshhhh. Ssshhhh.»

«Oh God, Cassie, you need to get out and demorph. What is Tom going to think when he sees?»

«If he freaks out, I'll handle it,» Cassie said firmly. And she slithered out of my ear, making me grimace at the slime and the pain.

"I'm sorry, Tom," I said, putting her down on the ground. "Our intel said there's a Hork-Bajir-Controller there who can tell if you're infested or not. I couldn't come for you if I didn't make it convincing."

«Yeah. I know. That's part of why I took care of the bodies. It kept anyone from paying too much attention to me. They… thought doing that was… like cleaning toilets, or taking out the trash.»

Cassie started to demorph. I tried not to shiver, at the gross morph or at the Yeerks treating dead Hork-Bajir like so much waste. "I know you hate Yeerks. I didn't like it either. But I knew I'd rather wait for you with Cassie in my head than not come for you at all."

«You went through that,» Tom said quietly, pointing at Cassie growing and writhing on the ground. «For me. I'm not mad, Jake. I'm just… humbled. That you were willing to put yourself through that, for me.»

«I hoped you'd understand,» Cassie said. «Thanks, Tom.»

«I'm staying in morph,» Marco said. «If we're hiking up with Tom, wolf is our best bet.»

"Marco's right," I said. I pictured the wolf, and itched with gray fur all over.

«You don't have to slow down for me,» Tom said. «You can fly ahead.»

"Like hell we're flying ahead," I said. "I'm sticking with you."

«I'll fly ahead,» Rachel said. «They're probably worrying like crazy over us in Kref Magh. I can let them know you're on your way. I can… break the news.»

«Thank you,» I said, heartfelt, too wolf to speak. I couldn't be the one to tell my parents first. Rachel could handle it.

Marco was right. In wolf morph, Cassie and Marco felt like pack more than anything else, even though they were so many things to me, more than I really knew how to name. They both licked my face, and it felt like what we were supposed to do.

In the brightening dawn light, Tom and my pack went back to the valley, where nothing would ever be the same.

 **Ax**

The valley was charged with a powerful mix of joy and grieving. All the Hork-Bajir were overjoyed to have saved so many children. Ghat Hefrin was in mourning because her son Thawet had been found and had died in the attack on the facility. The Animorphs grieved for Tom.

My hearts were turned against each other in the same way. I had done my part to save the Hork-Bajir children, as I had sworn to Toby Hamee I would, and there was a deep satisfaction in that promise fulfilled. But I had also noticed a change in Loren since our mission to warn her blind friends of the danger they faced. She was sad, withdrawn, and would barely speak to me. Cut off from both Loren and Tobias, I felt nearly as alone as I had stranded in the Dome beneath the ocean.

For Tom, I did not grieve. He had disobeyed direct orders from his prince, and had paid the price for it. That his prince was his younger brother made no difference. He had known where his loyalties must lie when he had asked to join the fight.

I asked Marco whether he wished to drink the delicious limoncello beverage again, but he said he was saving the remainder for a "special occasion." I told him that the liberation of the Hork-Bajir children was surely a special occasion, and in reply he asked me why I was so keen to consume intoxicants. Marco is always perceptive of the faults in others. Once more, he was correct. I sought to dull my mind against my troubles rather than contemplate them as I should.

I attempted to do so during the morning ritual. Had I served my duty to my prince well? Had I done right by the People? I was no fool. I knew most of them were more concerned with defeating the Yeerks than with the fate of the Hork-Bajir children under their control. But why did we care so much about fighting the Yeerks in the first place? Because we truly cared about the fate of the species they enslaved? Or simply because we were ashamed of our own mistakes?

Restless, I wandered through the woods, occasionally stopping to make a practice strike at a high branch. I froze in my tracks when I heard Tobias's thought-speech.

« – never stop missing a good old human bed. Especially when it rains all night.»

A rough, thick-tongued Hork-Bajir voice said, "Yeah. Sometimes I think about how I'm never gonna lie on the couch on Saturday morning and watch cartoons and…" His voice trailed off. It must be Tom, though I didn't dare come close enough to see. I was listening to a conversation between Tom and Tobias. The fur at the bend of my spine prickled and rose. After a pause, Tom went on, "Can I ask you something?"

«Of course.»

"Why do you do it? You and Rachel?" Another pause. "I mean it. One _nothlit_ to another. We get things about each other no one else does. Maybe if _you_ … maybe this time I'll get it."

The next silence was so long I wondered if Tobias had switched to private thought-speech. But then I heard him speak again. «Morphing is an incredibly dangerous weapon. We use it to spy on people, sneak into locked places, to maim or kill. We can also use it to heal ourselves, or just to fly, which is the best thing in the world. But that doesn't change how easy it is to hurt yourself or someone else, because that's what a weapon is for. Infestation, that's a very dangerous weapon too. You'd know that better than me. But you can also use it to help someone recover their memories, or just to experience something amazing you couldn't feel any other way. Rachel and I are playing with fire. We know it's dangerous. But morphing isn't the only weapon that can be used to heal.»

I felt very small. Tobias had used the language I always used when discussing the Escafil device. I thought of it exactly that way, as a terrible weapon that must be used responsibly. Tobias had listened to my opinions and internalized them. Then he had extended my logic in a way I had never considered before.

"I… think I actually get what you're saying," Tom said. "But… what if there are weapons that are so dangerous that no one can really be trusted to use them without maybe hurting someone? Even if you're trying to use it for a good reason?"

«Maybe infestation is like that,» Tobias allowed. «Maybe even morphing is like that. I don't know for sure. None of us do.»

"Still," Tom said. "I guess I can't blame you for trying. And if you screw up… well. I think we both understand the consequences of playing around with dangerous weapons. More than just about anyone."

«Thank you, Tom,» Tobias said. «For listening. For trying to understand.»

"Thank _you_ ," Tom said. "Getting trapped is so… well, you know. But I can't imagine what it would be like if I were the only one. You made me feel less alone."

«No problem. And thank you, Ax, for eavesdropping without interrupting. I was hoping you'd listen to what I had to say. Take some time to think about it, okay? I'll be around.» A branch rustled, and soon through the gaps in the canopy I saw Tobias's familiar figure soar away.

My fur flattened all over with mortification. Tobias had heard me coming and known I was listening. Of course he had. I ought to have realized. I stepped out from behind the cover of shrubs I had used. A young Hork-Bajir stood in the early light. He hunched against a tree awkwardly, making himself small, as if he did not know what to do with all of his bulk. He reminded me painfully of Tobias in the early days of our friendship, when he did not wear his hawk shape so easily. He used to steeple and rearrange his wings as though he did not know what to do with them when he was not in flight.

«I am sorry, Tom,» I said. «I did not mean to intrude on a private conversation.»

"Hey, it's no big," Tom said. He sounded so human despite the gravel of his Hork-Bajir voice. "Tobias told me in private thought-speech you were listening and asked if I was okay with letting you eavesdrop. I decided to go along with it. I think we both needed to hear that." He tilted his head on his long, flexible neck. "You never asked him why, did you? You were hearing that for the first time."

I nodded.

"Talk to him," Tom said. "Please. For me. Do it." He knelt in the leaf litter, knee blades digging into the dirt so his eyes were level with my main eyes. "Main eyes are for serious stuff, right? You told me about that. Look at me. I almost died by my own blade down there, Ax. I thought the Yeerks were going to find me out at any moment, and I couldn't let them take me, and I'd have to cut my own throat. The only thing I really regretted was that I'd snuck into the mission like an idiot, so I didn't get to hug Jake one last time and tell him I loved him. _Delareyne_ didn't get to touch Merlyse one last time. And I'll still never get to hug him," he said, showing off his blades, "and Delareyne will still never get to touch Merlyse again. But at least I can tell him I love him before every mission, so we get to have that if he dies out there. You don't know when or if you'll lose Tobias, Ax. Any time you go out on a mission, it could happen. Trust me. Make it right between you. Tell him you love him, in whatever Andalite way you do that. Then if you die out there, you'll have died doing the right thing, and you won't have anything to regret."

«Very well,» I said, and I was filled with fear and shame, and at long last, grief for Tom. He had been too damaged for war, and he had fought all the same, and it had returned him more damaged than before. «I, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill, swear to fulfill what your mind has touched to mine.» And I touched my blade to his forehead, at the base of the blade.

Tom would not know it, but that was the ritual promising to fulfill the last request of the dying. Tom was alive, to be sure, but his human life had ended. His request felt like the last words of the human boy he had been. So I would do as he asked, and lay the spirit of that human boy to rest.


	10. Epilogue

**James**

Velger was too hungry to be of much use, but what I was doing right now wasn't its strong suit anyway. I went through my collected notes again, pulled out a blank sheet, and started a list.

Failed Experiments

PMS: Felshek couldn't stop Erica from getting really bad mood swings and weird cravings before her period.

Bladder control: Craig still needs a catheter.

Teaching math: Falsen couldn't transfer Judy's calculus skills to Collette.

Emotional control: Jessie still gets embarrassed when that nurse she has a crush on does her check-ups.

Successful Experiments

Teaching languages: Now that I've had Deseek in my head, my basic Spanish is "not atrocious," according to Julio.

Pain control: Five different Yeerks have been able to suppress chronic aches and pains, and they seem to be able to help teach each other when they're in the Pool.

Involuntary movement control: Three different Yeerks have been proficient at controlling involuntary movements in kids with cerebral palsy.

Self-harm prevention: Liam sometimes bangs his head against the wall when he gets bored or angry. Garmiray can stop him from doing that.

I passed the list across the table to Kelly. "What do you think? What should we try next?"

Viradechtis pulled the paper toward Kelly with her front legs. Kelly read the list and chewed on her lip. "There's some kind of pattern here, what works and what doesn't, but I'm not sure what it is. If we had a doctor we could talk to, they might be able to figure it out…"

Cleyr snorted. "Oh yeah, the doctors will love that. 'Hey, Dr. Whelan, we've been doing medical experiments with the alien slugs in our heads. What do you think?'"

Sam, the Controller nurse on staff, power-walked through the ward. "I have a shift in Ward 5 coming up, but I thought I'd let you know that Sub-Visser Two-Twenty has been given a new assignment. You'll have a different Sub-Visser to report to, from now on. Please stay on your best behavior."

«"Please stay on your best behavior,"» Velger scoffed, through its grumpy haze of hunger. «Like we're kids.»

«You're in kids' brains,» I said. «Maybe we're rubbing off on you.»

"Mai kind of freaked me out," I told Kelly. "I wonder what this one will be like."

"Don't hold your breath," Kelly said. "Margoth has a lot to say about Sub-Vissers, and none of it good."

A small woman with box braids and some kind of rodent dæmon came in carrying a large briefcase. She laid it on a table and opened it up, revealing the portable Pool inside. She gestured to it like she had just cooked up a banquet. "Gather round, everyone."

She didn't have to tell us twice. I went to Pedro's room to collect his Yeerk, Gashad, in a plastic cup of water, and I joined the throng around the Pool. The strange Controller said, "I'm your new boss, Sub-Visser One-Ninety-Eight. We're also fine with Edriss or Michelle and Dashiell, but maybe you'd better stick to Sub-Visser One-Ninety-Eight, just so you don't slip up in front of other Controllers, hmm?" She took a deep breath, and I saw fear and a flash of excitement in her eyes. "I have a message for you from the Yeerk Peace Movement."

"Holy _shit_ ," Taurim whispered to Cleyr. "The dead drop worked. They sent us someone."

Michelle cut the whispering short. "But that message can wait." Her face went gentle. "Some of you are just about starving, I bet. Let's get our Yeerk friends fed first."

 **Eva**

Objectively speaking, the good in Bachu's message far outweighed the bad – I could feel as much from Aftran, a disinterested observer. I let her consider the implications of the rest of the message, and for a moment, let myself grieve for Tom and Delareyne.

Jean, Steve, and I had all become friends as students at UCSB. Jean, who was from LA, had been the one to introduce me to Peter, a brilliant engineering grad student at UCLA. I remembered Tom's birth. Before Marco came along, I'd babysit him so Jean and Steve could have date night. He was active and playful and stubborn. I loved that boy. I'd been so happy to get the message that the Animorphs had managed to free him. Jean and Steve, and especially their dæmons, would be so heartbroken that Tom had been trapped in morph. I hugged Mercurio close and kissed his smooth feathers.

"All right," he said gently. "Enough. Let's do what we have to do."

When I invited her to speak again, Aftran said excitedly, «Cassie's mother turned a Sub-Visser to the Peace Movement! Think what we can do with a Sub-Visser!»

"Quite a lot," I murmured. "This finally puts us in a position do something to help Madra. Not much to do for a child Controller other than assign her a Peace Movement Yeerk who has experience with children."

«Oh. Right.»

"And I couldn't exactly pass down word as Visser One to replace her Yeerk with one who will do the least damage. I'll pass down the authority for her to give out host transfers and assignments, and ask Bachu to send her word about Madra." I opened up the windows in my terminal to issue orders to increase her authority.

«This is probably not what Visser One had in mind when she asked us to protect Madra,» Aftran said wryly.

"No. But it's so appropriate, don't you think? Pairing the girl with one of those traitors to Empire she hated so much?" I smirked as I typed in the orders.

«And how about these young upstarts Sub-Visser 198 has gotten herself involved with?» Aftran said. «Those documents Bachu passed on from those Peace Movement Yeerks at the children's hospital are nothing short of revolutionary. The things they do to improve those disabled children's lives! Though I'll be damned if I know how to channel their creativity.»

"Oh, I don't see why we can't distribute those as an Empire-approved newsletter. I mean, isn't it a great sign of the success of my program that these disaffected rebel Yeerks are finally doing something useful for the Empire?"

« _Useful for the Empire_?» Aftran boggled. «But they're – they're – _oh_ , I see.»

I spun my swivel chair away from the terminal and gestured in the air like I used to when I brainstormed a new press strategy for a political campaign. I sketched out a headline with my hands. "'New Strategies for Host Management.' Getting distracting chronic pain signals from your host? Try these new techniques to suppress them and watch how focused you can become! Your host types far too slowly to keep up with the paperwork? Try swapping hosts with a Yeerk who knows how to type quickly, and your host will get up to speed in no time!"

«And meanwhile, Yeerks change their relationships with their hosts,» Aftran said. «They start thinking about their hosts' needs, how to improve their lives. Presumably so they can be better Controllers. But some of them will start to rethink.»

"Bingo. It's amazing what a little spin will do, Aftran." I slung my arm around Mercurio and swiveled my chair back toward the terminal. "I'll make a politician of you yet."

Chee Operating System v18939.10.5

System Log

Instantiation: 6UAQWRM3RN CHEE-ALEM (ALIAS: Daniel King and Phiroth)

› ()

02:09 AM PST

 **CHEE-ARODA**

How is it going for the big bad resistance fighter Chee? Still digging toilets for the Animorphs?

 **CHEE-NAXES**

Ha! As if you've never digged a toilet while playing human.

 **CHEE-ARODA**

I know. I just find it funny that after all the fuss you kicked up about breaking away and taking a more active role in fleshbeing affairs, that's what you've gotten up to. Supply runs and waste disposal.

 **CHEE-EXNIS**

Supply lines are the key to winning any war. We play an important role.

› . (electromagnetic_band = {300, 1050}, acoustic_band = {1, 30000}, auto_classify = TRUE)

› .detect()

['Habitation (Human) (abandoned)',

'Surveillance camera 1 (Yeerk) (neutralized)',

'Surveillance camera 2 (Yeerk) (neutralized)']

 **CHEE-ALEM**

Does anyone have new dummy footage for the Yeerk surveillance cameras on the Animorphs' homes?

 **CHEE-PULIM**

I've been working on a good one! It has a black bear wandering past it and rooting through the trash. I'm sure the Yeerks will spend at least an hour working out whether it's an Animorph or not.

[Animated image attachment: ' ']

› surveillance_ (instantiation = 8PEHU51QF2)

 **CHEE-ALEM**

Go ahead and load it in.

› .detect()

['Habitation (Human) (abandoned)',

'Surveillance camera 1 (Yeerk) (neutralized)',

'Surveillance camera 2 (Yeerk) (neutralized)',

' **Large organic being (unknown)** ']

› deep_scan = . (sector = 3)

['Domestic cat',

'Andalite',

'Tree frog',

'Tree frog']

› deep_scan['Andalite'].summary()

(Andalite. Male.)

› deep_scan['Andalite'] == known_andalites['Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill']

FALSE

› deep_scan['Andalite'] == known_andalites['Alloran-Semitur-Corass']

FALSE

 **CHEE-ALEM**

[Image attachment: ' ']

There is an unidentified Andalite hiding in the trees behind Jake Berenson's old house. What do I do?

 **CHEE-NAXES**

[Animated image attachment: ' ']

Another Andalite on Earth?

 **CHEE-LONOS**

[Animated image attachment: ' ']

I don't suppose there's any point telling you it's none of your business and you should leave him alone.

 **CHEE-NAXES**

We've made our choice. We decided to get involved in the affairs of fleshbeings. We're not going to draw an arbitrary line and say that Andalites are none of our business.

 **CHEE-BACHU**

I expect the Animorphs will very much want to speak with this Andalite. Be careful not to scare him off. He will be alert for Controllers.

› .project(image = ' ')

(New hologram projection activated.)

Incoming thought-speech connection:

## Hello? Who is there? ##

› deep_scan['Andalite'].approach()

› .configure(voice = ' ', language = 'Galard')

› .activate(message = 'My name is Naxes. I am an ally of the resistance against the Yeerk Empire on Earth. I am not an Andalite, but I appear in this form in order to present you with something familiar. Who are you?')

Warning message: Revealing your Chee identity may pose a security risk to the Chee Operating System. Do you wish to proceed? Y/N

› Y

(External speakers activated. Message delivered.)

Incoming thought-speech connection:

## You do not use thought-speech. This is not a morph. It is a hologram. Far beyond the capabilities of the Yeerks. ##

› .activate(message = 'That is correct. I am not affiliated with the Yeerk Empire. I am with the resistance.')

Incoming thought-speech connection:

## I had hoped to make contact with the resistance, but I did not expect… It does not matter. My name is Mertil-Iscar-Elmand. I come seeking asylum. Visser Five has captured my [Warning: difficult to translate concept. Closest approximations: best friend / closest confidant / lover / soulmate / husband] and now he seeks to capture me as well. ##

› known_andalites['Mertil-Iscar-Elmand'] = deep_scan['Andalite']

 **CHEE-ALEM**

I have the real deal here. A free Andalite looking for asylum from the Yeerks. Visser Five has his lover and is gunning for him next. Is there anyone in Kref Magh who can pass on the word?

 **CHEE-EXNIS**

[Animated image attachment: ' ']

On it.

› .include(known_andalites['Mertil-Iscar-Elmand'])

› . ()

› .activate(message = 'Come with me. I will take you to a safe place.')


End file.
